


Home, Love, Family

by captainchowder (aintweproudriff)



Category: Check Please! (Webcomic)
Genre: Fighting, Identity Issues, Immigration & Emigration, M/M, POV Alternating, literally just the musical
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-07-04
Updated: 2018-10-24
Packaged: 2019-06-05 07:49:33
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 15
Words: 21,407
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15166019
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/aintweproudriff/pseuds/captainchowder
Summary: A brave young man sets out to uncover his past, and enlists the help of a conman and ex-aristocrat. Together, they embark on an epic adventure to help him discover home, love, and family.ORThe Anastasia the Musical Au that no one asked forUpdates on Wednesdays





	1. A Rumor in St. Petersburg

**Author's Note:**

> So here's this! Anastasia the musical au but without a Gleb because I didn't want the hassle. I really hope I can convey my love for these characters, this ship, and this musical well, but please be sure to ask questions or call me out if I make a mistake or do something you don't understand.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Will's POV

Will couldn’t stand the propaganda, trying over and over to imprint the idea that times were so much better after a revolution designed for the people, and that Russia would soon be the envy of all the world. A brighter day dawning, a new wind blowing, a city booming, and soon it will be spring. They could call the city Leningrad and pretend everything was working, but it would always be the same ugly Petersburg where he grew up. A rose by any other name, empty stomachs by any other name.  
His life had never been easy, but now everyone was in his same situation. Starving, despairing for food and comfort and something - anything that would get them out of this hellhole. They waited in line for bread for eternities. They picked up work anywhere they could, even if it was scrubbing floors or freezing their fingers off. They put up with the stifling living situations and pretended that living with twenty other people was good, because it kept body heat up. They ignored the spies that were everywhere and nowhere, and pretended that the general public was all so grateful for having assisted the revolution. It had cost them all too much to ever be truly grateful. 

The people of Petersburg thrived on the gossip thrown about in the streets. People pretended to be careful about spreading the whispers, but everybody heard them almost as soon as they were minted. The newest and most popular rumor spread the fastest, and gained the most traction. Will didn’t believe it, honestly. It didn’t seem probable that the youngest prince, Prince Derek, could still be alive. After the way that people slaughtered the royal family, he couldn’t believe that any of them would have lived. Still, people seemed hooked on the idea of it. Will assumed that it was because people needed to remember their history: where they were from, what their lives used to be like, what their lives could become if the prince was found. So they kept spouting the words, insisting that he was alive, through cracks and behind alleyways. And even if he didn’t believe it, he was interested in the reward money that might go along with finding the prince and bringing him back. 

“William!” 

Will turned his head down the street, just in time to brace himself for Adam grabbing his shoulders and pushing him back. 

“They’ve closed another border!” he slung his arm around Will’s shoulders and brushed off his shirt nervously. “I told you we should have gotten out of Russia while we still could.”

Adam used to have it as good as anybody. Will had heard the story over and over again, usually during long nights, or whenever Adam got especially drunk. He had been born in Petersburg into a poor family, but learned to con early, and used the acting abilities he gained to dress up as a count and sneak into the royal parties. He loved the pomp and circumstance of being royal, even if only for a night. His favorite part of the entire ordeal, though, was the affair he started with one of the actual counts - Justin Oluransi. He still waxed poetic about the nights spent together, about the rush of fooling Justin’s husband, and about how devastating it had been on that night when the czar was shot and the royals evacuated the palace, leaving Adam once again lowly and poor, never to see Justin again. 

“Adam, I’ve been thinking about the story of Prince Derek.”

“No, not you too, Will. That story is everywhere, it’s-”

“It’s what’s going to get us out of Russia,” Will interrupted, grabbing Adam’s shoulders and spinning him so that they were looking at each other. “What if we find a boy-”

“Will, we’ve been trying to do that for you for forever.”

“Shut up, I’m being serious. We find a boy who looks like he could be Derek, and we dress him up, and teach him what to say. Then we go to Paris with him,” Will waved his hand in the air like he was painting an imaginary picture. 

“And fool his royal cousin, and get the reward,” Adam nodded slowly. “And get to Paris in the meantime.”

“Exactly. Are you in?”

“I think we could do it. We’re the best conmen in Russia, after all,” Adam smiled, quoting an inside joke so old that Will couldn’t remember its source. 

“If anyone could pull it off,” Will finished the joke, “it’s you and me.”

That afternoon, Will and Adam found themselves in the marketplace. The marketplace in St. Petersburg was chaotic, to say the least. The shouting of vendors and people clamoring for food and goods made Will’s ears hurt.  
“Only a ruble for this painting, it’s Nurse, I swear!”  
“Comrade, buy a pair of Count Yusupov's pajamas?”  
“I found this in a palace, initialed with a ‘D’! It might be Prince Derek’s, what will someone give me for it?”

Will sighed. “We need to find something that was genuinely the prince’s, something personal, so that we can fool his old cousin.”

He passed a cart full of items: some bread, with mold upon mold, some cloth, ripped and stained, and some papers and ink. A glint of silver caught his eye. A music box, tiny and delicate. 

“How much for the music box?” he tapped the vendor on the arm. 

“Ah,” the man rolled his head, and Will tried not to inhale in fear of catching something from the man’s beard. “The music box! I could never part with it; it’s genuine Nurse, see?” He tilted it up so that Will could get a better view, and sure enough, on the bottom it was engraved with ‘DMN’.

“How about two cans of beans for it, comrade?” he offered, his voice unable to hide his thick sarcasm on the word ‘comrade’. 

“Done,” the man said, grabbing the food away from Will. 

He sure hoped this paid off: two cans of beans was not easy to come by. He turned around, holding the tiny, silver box out to Adam. “Do you believe in fairy tales?”

Adam smiled. “Once upon a time I did, yes.”

“We’re going to create a fairy tale the whole world will believe. It’ll be risky,” Will said, continuing on his way down the street crowded with people. “But it can’t be more risky than usual.”

“Actually it can be,” Adam glared at him, “and I think it is more risky than usual.”

Will ignored him. “We’ll need papers, and tickets, and nerves of steel. With that, we can get across the border. With whoever is our prince, of course.”

“This could be really dangerous, you know. It might end in disaster, we could even get shot,” Adam pointed out.

“But if anyone can pull it off, it’s us,” Will reminded his friend. “And then, if it works - when it works, we’ll be rich.”

“And out of Russia.”

“And St. Petersburg will have another topic of gossip, right?” Will said, making Adam laugh despite the icy air. 

The marketplace buzzed on, people clamoring for goods and whispering the rumors they had heard about Prince Derek Nurse. Will’s head buzzed too, banging about what could go wrong in the biggest con in history.


	2. In My Dreams/Learn To Do It/Learn To Do It (Reprise)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Denya's POV

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I think it's obvious who Denya is, but I'm not using his real name for reasons that are just as obvious.
> 
> Also this chapter is three times as long as the previous one, but I think it should be one of the longest chapters.

Denya knocked on the huge wooden door seven times in rapidfire. When he heard shouting from inside, he gathered all his courage and pushed the door open, walking swiftly inside so he wouldn’t lose his nerve. 

“I’m looking for William,” he said, before he could even take in his surroundings. That was a mistake, he realized, once he was face to face with a hulking blonde man with rimmed glasses. 

“That’s William, over there,” the man pointed. “With the chair over his head, looking like an idiot. He can never be too careful of the authorities, you know.”

Denya turned and looked at where the man pointed. A boy, about Denya’s own age, was indeed raising a chair over his head. He slammed it to the ground and took a step towards Denya, light glinting off his scruffy red hair. 

“What do you want?” he said gruffly, staring Denya down. 

“I need exit papers,” he tried to explain calmly, hoping this boy would hear something in his voice that would make him sympathetic. “And I was told you’re the only one who could help me.”

“Exit papers are expensive,” he brought the chair to the middle of the room and set it down. 

“I saved a little money.”

“The right papers cost a lot,” he shook his head and turned his back from Denya.

Maybe the relaxed but desperate thing hadn’t worked. “I’m a hard worker. I’ll work. I can cook, and I could clean. At my old job in Odessa, I washed dishes, and before that I worked in a hospital.”

“Odesa,” William turned to look at him, and folded his arms. The blonde man had taken a seat in another chair next to the wall. “That’s a long way from here. What - what are you running away from?”

Denya smiled, like he’d won a tiny argument. William wasn’t the first to get it wrong. “I’m not running away, I’m running to someone. I don’t know who they are, but they’re in Paris-”

“-He has no money, and he’s crazy!” William threw his hands up and walked behind the his friend, who laughed.

“I’m not crazy!” Denya protested, and he could hear his voice reverberate off the walls. Yelling probably wasn’t the best way to prove that point. “Will you help me?” He brought his hands to his chest and lowered his voice as he took a step forward. 

“I’ll give you some advice is what I’ll do,” William nodded his head, as if squaring up for a fight. “You want to get out of the country? There’s a creek just outside, leads to a river. Jump in and start swimming.”

His friend stood up. “We were hoping you would be someone else. Someone,” he looked at William, “who may not even exist.”

Denya didn’t hear his last few words. For the first time, he looked around the room that they were standing in, and it was like he was hit by a wave of freezing air. 

“I’ve been in this room before.” He felt himself stumbling backwards. 

“Now what?” William said with annoyance. “You’re not going to faint on us.”

He felt the man take his arm. “When did you eat last?” he asked kindly, guiding Denya to the chair in the center of the room. 

“What is this place?”

“This was the theater in Count Yusupov's palace,” the man said, and something tugged in Denya’s heart. “Go get him a glass of water and some cheese,” he instructed William, who grumbled and left. 

The feeling washed away as quickly as it had come, and Denya turned to the man, watching him worriedly with big blue eyes. 

“You seem like a gentleman, even if your friend is not.” Denya held out his hand to the man, who laughed from his chest. 

“Gentleman?” he said, crouching to match Denya’s height when he was sitting. “That’s a word I haven’t heard in years. And you know, life hasn’t been easy for William.”

“Life hasn’t been easy for any of us,” he replied. Suddenly, he saw a glass of water appear in his face. He took it, but didn’t look up at William to thank him for it. 

The man muttered to William, who started shouting. It seemed like he did a lot of that. 

“What, him? Are you crazy too?” William yelled. 

“What’s your name, sir?” the man ignored his friend. 

Denya hated this question most of all. “Um, well. I’m not sure.”

“You don’t know?” he said, flabbergasted. 

“They gave me a name at the hospital,” he explained. “Denya. They told me I had amnesia, and there’s nothing they could do about it.”

The man sighed, and he and William both sat down. “Tell us what you do remember, then.”

Denya took a deep breath in. “Well, they said I was found n the darkness and cold, with the wind in the trees, by the side of a road, and that there were tracks all around, because it had recently snowed. At first, they called me the boy with no name. Then they called me Denya, and gave me what I would need. That’s all I remember from before the hospital.”  
He made a point of not looking at William or his friend.  
“After that, it was a lot of travelling on back roads, taking work when I could get it. A few times, I stole for food, but never if I could help it,” he stood up without realizing he was doing it, as if to confront someone or something. “I kept up my courage, even when it seemed foolish, because I would get these dreams when I finally got to sleep. In my dreams, I’m somewhere else: it’s warm, and happy, and I have people with me that I know.”  
He stepped aside, and handed the glass to the blonde man, who took it but didn’t stop watching Denya’s face. “I dream of a city that I’m pretty sure is Paris. There’s a beautiful river and a bridge by a square, and I hear a voice whisper that they’ll meet me in Paris,” he stressed the word Paris like it was a promise.  
Then he turned, and looked at William, whose face was still dubius. “You don’t know what it’s like not to know who you are,” he said, stepping over to him to prove his point, “or to have lived in the shadows and traveled this far. I’ve seen flashes of fire and heard the echoes of screams, but I still believe in what I see in my dreams.”

And he did believe in the truth of his dreams. In his dreams, everything that he saw was real, and something new that his heart remembered. His dreams kept him moving forward no matter what, kept him trying to earn enough money to get to Paris, kept him alive. He knew that, even after his dreams faded and he woke up, his dreams would be back again. 

The man stood up. “There’s definitely a resemblance, Will.”

William followed suit. “Have you heard the rumors about Prince Derek?”

“Yes, everyone has. But that’s all they are, right? Rumors?”

William smiled and rubbed his hands together, and it made Denya’s stomach uneasy. “Well, it looks like we may be able to help you after all, Denya,” he nodded. “It so happens that we’re going to Paris ourselves.”

They took him to another room in the palace, and set up a chalkboard of all things. Along the way, he learned that the blonde man’s name was Adam, and that he had known the royal family and their customs forwards and backwards. He also learned their plan to dress him up and lie to royalty, and as they explained, a pit grew in his stomach.

“I need to figure out who I am,” he sat down, shaking his head, “but I’m not going to lie to do it.”

William crouched down next to him. “When the emperor sees you and recognizes you as his cousin, Prince Derek, you’ll know that that’s who you are!”

“I wish I had your confidence,” Denya bit back, and William stood up, visibly frustrated. 

“I’m confident,” he said, flailing his arms, “that Adam and I will get a small reward for our efforts, and we’ll all live happily ever after!”

“And what happens when he calls me an imposter like all the other Dereks?”

“Then it will have been a great adventure,” he held out his hands. “And it got us out of Russia.”

That was a good point, at least. “Okay. How do you become the person you forgot you ever were?”

“First,” Adam smiled victoriously, “you take a deep breath. Close your eyes, and try to imagine another time.” He guided Denya to sit down, and grabbed a book full of photos and drawings. He opened it to the first page, showing him a photograph of the palace. At the bottom of the page was written ‘August, 1909’. “You were born in a palace by the sea.”

“Could that be real?”

“Yes, it is! You rode horseback when you were three years old,” he continued, and flipped the page to show a drawing of stables. 

“Horseback riding? Me?” Denya laughed. He was the clumsiest person he had ever met, so horses didn’t seem likely. 

William looked up from where he sat on Denya’s left side. “And what was the horse’s name, Adam?” 

“Romeo! Oh my goodness, and you threw tantrums,” Adam laughed so hard his head rolled back. “Terrorized the entire palace.”

“So you were a charming child,” William nodded sarcastically, but Denya almost didn’t catch it with how caught up in the photos he was.

“Huh. He wrote the book. But it only took one look from his father to get him to behave.”

Suddenly, they each grabbed Denya by the wrists and dragged him up. 

“We have a lot to teach you!” William said by way of explanation. “And we don’t have much time. So no more time for imagining.”

“Let’s see you walk,” Adam proposed. “Give us your best regal bearing, with your shoulders back-” he grabbed Denya’s shoulders and pulled them “-and your head up, and standing tall, and don’t walk but try to float.”

Denya did as he was told, trying to walk lightly on the ground below him. “This feels silly,” he felt red rise to his cheeks. “Am I floating?”

“Like a sinking boat,” he heard William whisper, and instinctively turned to face him to challenge his authority to talk to him like that. 

But then Adam was showing him how to bow, and how to receive a kiss on the hand, and there wasn’t any time for fighting, because there was enough to learn anyway. Through the whole thing, he kept hearing Adam say: “if I can learn to do it, then you can learn to do it.”  
And surprisingly, he could learn to do it. The walking came to him soon enough, and the bowing felt familiar. When he bowed, Adam gasped and called him a natural.  
Too soon, he was ushered to a tiny table with a plate and a cup. 

“Now elbows in,” William was pushing his arms and his back around in ways that made them ache more than the time he carried too much building material on a job, “and sit up straight and do not slurp the stroganoff.”

“I never cared for stroganoff,” Denya said, swooning a little bit to look royal, hoping that a hyperbole might ease some tension. Whether he was doing it for his sake or for Adam’s or for William’s, he didn’t know. 

“He said that like a Nurse!” Adam grinned, chuckling. 

“The samovar!” William pushed a cup in front of Denya, and Denya assumed he was supposed to pretend there was tea in it. “The caviar!”

“How about dessert, and then goodnight?” Denya asked, leaning back in his chair. 

Adam shook his head, as if to apologize. “Not until you know all of this. Don’t forget: if I can learn to do it, then you can learn to do it. Tell yourself it’s easy, and it’s true!”

The three of them spent hours in that room together, and Denya found himself losing his coat to a chair that he made function as a rack. Adam’s coat and William’s coat joined his soon after. 

Adam was quizzing him as Denya flipped through an old book. “Your great-grandmother was-”

“Queen Victoria,” he answered dully. 

“Who was your great-great grandmother?”

“Um, Princess Victoria of Saxe-Coburg-Saalfeld.”

“And your best friend was-”

“My little brother Alexei,” he grinned, as if something about the very name enthralled him. 

William stood up. “Wrong! Your best friend isn’t your brother-”

“I know who my best friend is!” Denya protested, walking up to William with confidence of a bull. He swatted him away, and he turned away in a huff. 

“What a temper this prince has,” William watched him leave. 

“I don’t like being contradicted!”

“That makes two of us!”

Adam got between them, keeping Denya from doing something stupid like throwing a punch. “Moving on!” he yelled, and his voice boomed so much it shook the floor. 

“No!” Denya stomped, his voice just as loud. “I’ve had it, and I’m sick of you both, and I’m sorry that we ever met. I’m hungry, and scared, and I don’t deserve any of this. If I didn’t need exit papers, I’d leave now.” He turned to face the chalkboard. It seemed simpler than the room, and the people, and the books and the plates and the walking like you’re trying to float.

He heard William start to say something, and he thought he saw him raise his hands over his head, but instead Adam spoke. 

“Denya. Can you look at me?” That was the softest Denya had ever heard Adam’s voice, so he swung back around. “We’re all scared sometimes, it’s okay. Take a breath for me, and count to ten.”

1,2,3,4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10

“You know what I like about you?” Adam knelt down. “You’re brave. You’ve got so much courage and strength, and you don’t seem to know it.” He held out his arm like a gentleman, and Denya took it. He pulled him out to the middle of the room. “You’ve travelled so far, and done so much, and you’re still soft. That takes skill. So blow your nose-” he pulled out a handkerchief “-and dry your eyes. Because you’re a prince! And a prince just like your majesty can do this if he tries, okay?”

“Okay. Let’s go,” Denya heard himself say. 

“Now here’s your great-aunt Olga,” Adam started to say.

William cut in. “I think she frolicked on the Volga!”

Thinking he remembered something about her, Denya started flipping through the book they’d given him. 

As he was flipping through pages, Adam began explaining another branch of the family tree. “Your distant cousin Vanya loved his vodka.”

“Got it, Denya?” William asked. 

All Denya could do was try to find Vanya in the book while names started to swim together.

“The Duke of Oldenburg was short-”

“Louise of Baden had a wart-”

“Count Sergei wore a feathered hat!”

“I hear he’s gotten very fat,” Adam commented, probably happy to remember the old Russian gossip. 

“Oh!” Denya laughed, looking up. “He had a yellow cat, didn’t he?”

Adam’s forehead knit tightly. “I- we didn’t tell you-”

All of a sudden, this whole thing seemed possible. He was learning, remembering, and knowing things from recesses of his mind. 

“Okay. The last thing we need to do, and then we’ll be done for the night” Adam said, sighing, as if even thinking about doing anything else wore him out, “is teach you to dance. I’m not really any good anymore, so-”

He gestured at William, who barely managed to bite back a groan as he squared up to dance, putting his arm on Denya’s waist. However reluctantly, he put his arm on William’s shoulder, forcing William to bend down slightly, since he was a few inches taller than Denya. 

“And one, two, three, one, two, three, one, two, three,” Adam counted, and they started awkwardly stepping in time, until William misstepped and landed right on Denya’s foot.

“Ow!” 

“Sorry,” William muttered, but it didn’t sound remorseful. 

Adam sighed. “And one, two, three, one, two, three, one, two, three,” he said again in a sing-song voice. This time, just as they were getting a rhythm down, Denya took the opportunity to slam his foot on top of William’s, causing him to suck in a breath. 

Adam’s voice was strained. “And one, two, three, one, two, three, one, two, three.”

This time, they seemed to get it. They let their shoulders relax and let themselves lean into the beat Adam had started in their heads. They moved in one wide circle, then another.  
William raised his eyebrows, questioning, his eyes gleaming devilishly, and jerked his head towards Adam. Hoping he understood what he was trying to say, Denya nodded sharply, and the two of them took off together, dancing their way in pursuit of Adam. Before he actually understood what was happening, Denya was laughing loudly, and so was William, and so was Adam.  
The pair slowed down their chase long enough to give Adam, the old man, a chance to rest his aching back. As they did so, however, they slowed down their dancing. Denya looked up at William, and wondered if they had gotten closer together since they started dancing.  
But then Adam was grabbing him, helping him dance and this time letting him lead, and Denya felt actually successful. 

“Okay, okay,” he said when they were done. “Let me try the reviewing again really fast.”

“Alright, go!”

“The caviar, the stroganoff, the Samovar, the feathered hat, the cousin drank, the Duke was short. And here a wart, and there a cat. The horse’s name was Romeo, so tell me something new!”

William and Adam both laughed and exclaimed. So did Denya, out of disbelief that he’d actually remembered all of that. 

“Bien fait, monsieur,” Adam said with a dramatic bow.

“Je vous remercie,” Denya smiled back at him. 

He straightened up. “You speak French?” 

“Well, a little bit at least,” Denya pushed the chair towards the wall. He knew that was almost a lie. He spoke French well enough that it was nearly perfect. “Why does it matter?”

“All of the royals spoke French. Speak French, if they’re still, well, you know,” Adam mused, grabbing his coat from a chair. “Denya, tonight, you can sleep on the bag of lentils. You’ve earned it! And tomorrow, we begin again!”

William threw Denya’s coat at him. “In Russian, next time!” he snapped, leaving the room in a huff. Before Denya could even wonder what had him in such a mood, he remembered what Adam had told him: that he was born in a palace by the sea. Denya wondered if it could be true.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks so much for reading!! Comments make me the happiest ever!!


	3. My Petersburg

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i got this chapter a little mixed up with its surrounding scene but uhhhh i actually like it better this way.

William found himself walking through the Petersburg market at night. He had often done this, both as a little boy and as a young man, to get food or to find a place to sleep for the night. Sometimes, Adam had been with him too, and long ago, his father had joined him. Most of the time, however, he enjoyed seeing the city alone. When he was alone, it was easy to act like he didn’t exist and tune out to the world around him.   
Tonight, he wasn’t alone. Denya, the boy who had ended up at the door to the Yusupov Palace asking for papers, was at his side. William still wasn’t sure about him. He was kind and compassionate, without a doubt, but still, he was irritating. Denya liked to push Will’s buttons in every way he could find. Often, it was by being so kind to others: he put their needs ahead of his own, and acted like it wasn’t a big deal that Denya himself hadn’t slept in days. Or he would pretend not to care about what was happening around him. William knew he was pretending, because it was impossible not to feel pangs in his heart when he saw people starving in the street. Adam liked to tell him that people coped with things in different ways, but Will couldn’t understand how apathy would make any of this better. Caring, working hard, all of it was what had kept William alive. 

“Look who’s here!” a familiar voice yelled, and William stopped in his tracks, finding himself staring down a face from his past. Liev, a tall man with broad shoulders and a constant smell of vodka and piss stood in front of him. “The prince of Petersburg!”

“I thought you were in Paris,” another man, Slava, said from his spot on his ass on the ground. 

Then came Tasher’s voice. “He missed his old partners in crime!” 

“And,” Liev laughed, and William noticed how the sound reminded him of glass shattering, “he’s got himself a little boyfriend instead.”

“He’s not my boyfriend,” was all William could think to say. 

“Well, that’s right, of course.” Slava stood up. “It’s Prince Derek himself. I bet,” he looked at Denya, “that he’s got you bowing for him and everything.” He leaned forward, obviously intedning to be crude. 

Denya took his wrist and the two of them began to pull each other away from the group of men. 

“Are you going to Paris, mon cher?” Liev stood in Denya’s way. 

“Have a drink with us, William!” Tosher called. 

“Come on, William,” Denya tried to pull him the other way, and he started to follow. “I don’t like these people.”

“Aww, sweetheart,” another two men stood in his way. “Are you too good for us?”

He moved toward the men threatening his sort-of-friend, but a hand on his arm yanked him back. He spun around to face Liev again. 

“If you don’t want him, William, I’ll take him!” Liev pushed William back, and grabbed Denya’s arm, pulling him possessively to his chest.   
Denya yelped, and Will tried to stand up so that he could help get him away from the man, but before he could reach either of them, Denya had shoved his knee into Liev’s stomach, and was pulling away. A man tackled Will from behind, and he swung his elbow and fists blindly. Somehow, his tactic worked, the man falling on his ass and scrambling away. Another man swung at William, but this time he was ready. He grabbed the man’s arms and pulled him to the ground, and he also ran away. Coward.   
While William had been fighting off his own attackers, Denya had somehow managed to get rid of all of his as well, save for one. In the process, Denya had acquired some kind of stick - a bat, almost - and raised it above his head. The guy didn’t stand a chance. As he was running away, Denya let out a scream from his gut. 

“Where did you learn that?” William asked, trying to regain his breath. 

“Wanna see what else I can do?” Denya’s voice hadn’t quieted down yet. He ran at William, who flung an arm around his waist to stop him. “Come at me,” Denya said, backing up, swinging the stick around. “I won’t hurt you.”

William had a hard time controlling his laugh. “I believe you,” he held out his hand, and Denya gave him the stick. He turned away to put it on the ground. 

“I didn’t walk halfway across Russia without learning how to take care of myself,” Denya said, his voice sounding almost shameful as he pulled further away from William. 

“That makes two of us,” William replied, throwing the stick down. When he turned back around, Denya was seated on a rock, a hand in his hair. 

“There has to be more to life than just surviving it.”

“Once upon a time, maybe there was,” William agreed, making his way to behind where Denya sat. “It’s a dog eat dog world now.”

Denya looked up at him. “Is that why you act so tough?”

And if that wasn’t the most offensive thing. “I am tough. Do you think I would be standing here if I weren’t?” He stepped forward, then turned to Denya to make sure he was listening. “I grew up alone in the streets of Petersburg. I mean, I was really just a kid, and I had to learn how to get by without anyone to help me.”

Denya hummed in understanding, or maybe memory of doing something similar himself. 

“I’ve bartered to get a blanket,” William continued. “And I’ve stolen food since as far back as I can remember. I was dumb when I started out - what kid isn’t, really? But I learned to get smart about it, so that I didn’t end up in scuffles.” He could feel his arms getting more and more animated as he continued and memories of the trouble he’d gotten into flooded his mind. “A Russian street rat has to be clever, or else he ends up dead.”

Denya moved over so Will could sit next to him. He took the opportunity. “See, because there are two types of people in Petersburg. There are some people who survive, and some people who don’t. The first kind is people who give up. I’m the second kind of person. That makes this my Petersburg.”

Denya raised his eyebrows. William couldn’t tell if it was amusement or interest. He took it as the latter and kept talking. 

“C’mon,” he stood up. “I wanna show you something.”

Denya scrambled after him, and the two of them ran up a flight of stairs carved out of rock, until they were staring out over the city. 

“This is my favorite view in all of Petersburg. Favorite view in all of Russia, probably. Maybe the whole world,” William pondered quietly. 

“It’s beautiful.”

“My dad used to bring me here. He’d put me on his shoulders and say: ‘Billy, you can see the whole world from up there!’” Will shouted in mockery of his old man.

“Billy?”

“That’s what he called me,” he chuckled at the memory. “He was an anarchist. Didn’t believe in being born into something, he said we made our own fates, and that we make ourselves better than our circumstances.” His smile turned into a frown. “He died in a labor camp. By that point, my mother was already gone.”

Denya looked at his shoes. “Looks like we both have no families then.”

“You don’t know that for sure. Besides, I raised myself. And the city raised me. Standing here,” William laughed, “I can see everything. The spires, the piers, the place where I stole a pair of shoes-” he jumped forward to point, almost tripping over his feet in his enthusiasm “-and climbed a wall and skinned my knee. This is the place where I grew up and became myself. It shaped me and everything I would ever do,” he sighed, realizing for what felt like the first time, exactly what it would mean to leave Russia. No more Petersburg. 

“Me too,” Denya offered, a shy smile on his face. “I feel the same way.”

“Well. Would you just look at that sky, huh?” Will didn’t know what else to say. “I think the city’s telling us something.”

“What?”

“We’ve taken what it’s given, now it’s time to go.”


	4. Once Upon a December

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The bootleg I was using on youtube got taken down for copyright reasons, so now I'm using stagedork and I think it's probably going to give my laptop a virus. Let's hope this fic is worth it!  
> This chapter's pretty short, but I think the next chapter will be quite a bit longer.
> 
> The tour cast for Anastasia was just announced this morning, and I really hope I get to see it, because I'm already a little in love with the Anya.

The air hit Denya’s face: cold, but comforting. Something about the way that William talked about Petersburg bore similarities to the city itself in that way - cold and comforting.  
William was bent down on one knee, like he was bowing, or proposing, but he was ruffling through his bag. He seemed to decide that he didn’t need whatever he was looking for and looked up at Denya.

“What’s that, across the river?” he asked, standing up.

Denya looked across to see what he meant. “The fortress,” he answered easily. “Of Saints Peter and Paul.”

“And how many czars appeared there?” William raised his eyebrows, like this was a game.

Denya rolled his eyes, and if he slouched in complaint, he’d never admit it. “Are we really going to do this tonight?”

“Well, um,” he straightened up. “What do you want to do?”

Denya blinked. Of all the things he’d thought William might say, that had not been one of them. He straightened his back too, turning and walking away from William. “I wanna be someone who belongs to someone,” he admitted. Like how William belonged to himself, like how the city belonged to William. “Someone who knows who they are.”

A breeze blew between them. 

“Convince the emperor and you will,” William said, so sure of himself, pointing a long finger. “Now!” he clapped his hands and took quick strides towards Denya. “Tell me about the emperor’s little dog!”

Denya smiled. It seemed there would be no getting out of this. “His name was Tobi,” he remembered from the book that Adam and Will had given him and instructed him to study religiously. Then, for a second, he wasn’t thinking of the words on the page; he was seven, and a tiny white dog ran at him and all but jumped into his arms. Denya brought his hands to his chest, hoping that if he tried hard enough, the dog would appear. “I loved him so much,” he whispered, and paused. 

“Don’t stop. You can do it,” William prompted, pulling Denya away from whatever thoughts had been in his mind. 

He brought his arms back down to his sides. “I’m not as strong as you think I am.”

William looked disappointed, then made a ‘tsk’ing noise. “Close your eyes,” he ordered, turning to pull something out of his bag. 

“Why?”

Will rolled his eyes like Denya was a child. “Just do it.” 

Denya did as he was told. 

“Put your hand out.” Will’s voice had softened so that his words were less of an order and more of a suggestion. 

Denya did as he was told, and felt something heavy. 

“Now open!” 

The first thing he saw when he opened his eyes was William, stepping back with his arms held in the air, his smile proudly stretching across his face. The second thing he saw was an intricate design in tarnished silver, dotted with gems and what might have been pearls. 

“Oh my god-”

“You’ve worked hard,” William nodded solidly. “You’ve earned it.”

“It’s beautiful,” Denya raised it up gingerly to look at the bottom. Pretty things, even tiny trinkets, were rare. 

William chuckled. “Isn’t it? It’s a music box. And it’s broken,” he shook his head. “I can’t even open it.”

Denya decided not to listen, and fiddled with the knob on the bottom. He twisted it once, twice, three times, and then spun the top gently. Like magic, it popped open with a creaking sound. A tiny melody began to play. 

William looked like he had seen a ghost. “How did you do that?” he stepped closer, pointing at the box.  
But Denya still didn’t listen to him, entranced by the sound. “Denya?” William asked. 

Denya stepped forward, away from William. The music was so familiar, almost like he could-

“Dancing bears,” he whispered, without saying anything, “painted wings. Things I almost remember. And a song someone sings, once upon a December.”

William stood straight, his arms at his side, watching him, but even though Denya knew he was looking at William’s face, it was like he didn’t see him. 

“Someone holds me safe and warm,” Denya smiled, the words falling off his tongue like they were an old favorite poem. “Horses dance through a silver storm.” He wondered if it had actually started snowing, or if he was remembering ashes. “Figures dancing gracefully across my memory.”

People had danced so beautifully in those days. Nothing was choreographed, everything was intuitive, and yet everything was choreographed, because everyone had learned the dances for this purpose: to dance together at the balls. “Far away, long ago, glowing dim as an ember, things my heart used to know-” His mother had been his favorite dance partner “-things it years to remember.” She was light on her feet, let Denya step on her toes and laughed about it, so full of life and joy in the midst of the cold, forbidding, Russian winters. She had held him in her arms when he was young and they had danced around the ballroom, the whole palace in awe of him. 

“And a song someone sings.” He looked up to see William, and Petersburg, and snow: not a palace or bears or dancers. “Once upon a December.”

William was right next to him, their shoulders touching. 

“How soon do you think we can leave?” Denya looked up at him, the memories fading. “They’re cancelling trains right and left, soon the borders will be closed, we need to get out of here soon. I worked an extra shift this week,” Denya dug into his pocket and pulled out a few coins. “It’s not much, but I think every bit counts.”

“We’re not going to make it,” William said under his breath. “We don’t have enough money.”

Denya gaped. “What? What do you mean? We’ve been working so hard for this.”

“And it’s still not enough. I’m sorry.”

“You-” he took a deep breath in, trying to keep his heart rate steady. “You were the only chance I had. I trusted you.”

“I said I was sorry,” William bit, obviously not utilizing the same anger-management strategies that Denya was. He shoved the coins back into Denya’s hand. 

“I don’t want your money.”

“It’s your money,” he protested. 

“It’s our money,” Denya sighed. “We were going to use it. I trusted you.”

William looked strangled, and pushed away from Denya. 

“But I didn’t trust you enough,” Denya realized. A weight burned in the inside pocket of his coat, giving him an idea. He wondered briefly if it was really the right time, and then decided that it was now or never. “Now you close your eyes!”

“What for?” William threw out his hands in frustration. 

“You are,” Denya stomped over to him, “the stubbornest person I’ve ever met. Almost as stubborn as I am. Close your eyes.”

William closed his eyes, but not before rolling them in an obvious ‘what could you possibly have’ way.

“Put your hand out.”

William did, and Denya shoved his hand into his pocket, pulling out what he knew was there. He rolled it between his fingers, and then put it in William’s hand. 

“Okay, now open.”

William jerked his hand up when he saw the tiny rock in his palm. The motion almost sent it flying, and Denya paralyzed at the thought. 

“This is a diamond,” William breathed. 

Denya nodded. “The nurse at the hospital found it sewn in my underclothes. She hid it for me until I was able to leave. She kept it a secret; I never knew why she didn’t just take it. She told me not to tell a soul until I really needed to, and to make sure it was someone I trusted.”

William held it up to the light. “You went all this time without telling me?”

“Yes.” 

“Why?”

And hadn’t Denya just explained this? “It’s the only thing I have. Without it, I can’t do anything.”

“How do you know I won’t take it now?” William said harshly. 

Denya inhaled. “I don’t think you will.”

“God, I could just-” William yelled, running a hand through his hair. Denya thought he was angry, but the words sounded like he was going to do something - either punch him or kiss him. Instead, William hugged him, almost tackling Denya flat to the ground. 

When Denya had nearly caught his breath, he heard a voice. 

“Disaster!” Adam. “The Yusupov Palace has been raided! We’re done for if we go back there!” His voice carried across the concrete until he was right next to the two of them. 

Wordlessly, proudly, William held up the diamond. 

“Oh my go-” Adam breathed. 

“He had it this whole time!” William pointed at him, making him feel like he was a child being blamed for breaking a vase. 

“I didn’t trust either of you with it,” Denya explained, cringing. 

Adam shook his head. “I don’t blame you. I’d be angry, but-” he hugged Denya tightly “-all is forgiven, and I love you, Denya!”

William grew serious. “Can I trust you,” he handed the diamond to Adam, “to get the exit papers?”

“I talked my way into two coronations,” Adam laughed, taking it and pocketing it. “I think I can manage exit papers!”

“There’s an early morning train!” Denya yelled after Adam as he ran, finding it impossible to hide the glee in his voice.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I was going to change the words to the song so that they didn't rhyme, but once upon a December is actually a song that would rhyme, since it's a lullaby, so i kept it.


	5. Stay, I Pray You/We'll Go From There

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> William's POV

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I feel a little iffy about how stay i pray you turned out, but I don't think anyone could make it work in prose, I think it has to be the way it is in the show. So I'm not gonna beat myself up over it.   
> Here's a cute animation that helped me write that scene: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vCLgy7VtpA0  
> Also this is unedited because I'm lazyyy

As Denya and Adam ran off in different directions, William realized exactly what this diamond meant. They were going to go to Paris. On a train. He was going to sleep in a hotel. And take a bath! Fuck, the last time he took a bath was - he didn’t remember.   
The promise of a better life carried him until the next morning, when they met at the bustling train station. The smell of smoke attacked him, and the announcements of trains and times rang in his ears (including one from Petersburg to Budapest to Paris), and he pushed his way through too many people as Adam explained the situation. 

“It’s a special train,” he said hushedly, holding out a few tickets to Denya and Will, “for aristocrats and intellectuals. It’s for everyone the Bolsheviks want out to get rid of. Here.” He shoved the papers into their hands. 

Will looked at them, then looked around. He’d thought he had seen most of everyone else in line for this train holding papers that were green, not white.

“Are you sure these are right?” he leaned into Adam. “Everyone else has green.”

He barely had the chance to shove them back at Adam to make him look before he was distracted. A short man with a cane, glasses, and a long coat with tails rushed towards the three of them, stopping just in front of Denaya. He took Denya’s hand in his gloved hand, gently raising it to his lips and pressing a kiss. 

William only barely heard him whisper “God bless you,” but didn’t miss how he looked up at Denya with - admiration? Praise? Hope? He looked at Adam in confusion, and so did Denya. The man looked up at all three of their faces and, ashamed for having caused confusion but probably not for the gesture, stood up to walk away, his head down so as not to make eye contact with any of them again. 

“I recognize that man,” Adam breathed solemnly as soon as the man was out of earshot, although Will could still see his back. “It is the Count Ippolitov. Not just an aristocrat, he’s an intellectual as well. A dead man on two counts.”

William nodded. Adam was right: that was dangerous. William hoped that this journey went safely for the Count. If it didn’t, it may be the last place he could go. He didn’t think about what would happen to them if the journey didn’t go safely.   
The announcement that the train would be leaving shortly sounded, and William felt chills all over his body. Looking at Denya and Adam, it was obvious that they felt similarly haunted. 

“We should go,” Adam said simply.   
William nodded again. But he snuck a glance back towards the man - Count Ippolitov, who stood with his back straight as he looked out the window. He wondered what he was thinking. Was he happy to leave, to get away from the people who, given the chance, would kill him to preserve their new society? Or was he maybe thinking of all of the places in Russia that he had gone and never appreciated until he was deserting them? The bridges, rivers, forests, and waterfalls, the orchards, the seas, and the stormy skies of Petersburg had been home to this man his whole life, likely. And now he was leaving them.   
He tasted something in his mouth, cold and biting against the smoke blowing from the train, and knew he had to go sooner rather than later. All at once, he didn’t want to leave. But between wanting to be free and wanting to be sentimental, he knew which one had to win. Even when this country was his home, it had also caused him so much grief and hurt. Maybe Paris, for all that it would be new and different and not at all like Petersburg, would be better.   
A cloud of something more than smoke hung over the crowd as together, they all stepped onto the train cars. One thought wormed through his mind as he sat down: “I’ll bless this place until I die.”

The train chugged along for a few hours, rattling underneath Will’s feet. The sky turned from overcast to clear as they left Petersburg; he hoped that might be a good sign. Inside the train, however, the situation was dismal to put it nicely. It was crowded, people were shoved together four to a bench, and towards the front of the train car, a baby wailed. 

“This is ridiculous,” Adam grumbled, in his quietest voice that really wasn’t that quiet. “I paid for first class.”

William bit back a laugh. “There is no more first class! Everyone is equal now, remember?”

Denya apparently wasn’t getting that memo. He turned to the man next to him, who was flipping through the pages of a book and taking puffs from a huge, smelly cigar. “How dare you smoke around me?” he said, squaring his shoulders. 

The man took his cigar out of his mouth and side-eyed Denya. “Who the hell do you think you are?”

“I am the Grand Duke Derek Nurse!” Denya’s voice got louder and louder (and more pretentious) as the man stood up. William and Adam shared a nervous look.

“I’m in a compartment with a crazy man!” the man joked to the other people in the car, who squealed in laughter. He moved to the front of the train car. 

Denya moved down on the bench. At least now they had more room to sit. 

“Well,” William sighed. “That was a disaster.”

Denya looked at his shoes. “I wanted to see how it felt to say I was him.”

Adam patted Denya’s knee. “It’s a long trip,” he told him, “you’ll have plenty of time to practice. Now-” he nudged William’s shoulder and Will leaned in. “In Paris, your first challenge will be meeting the emperor’s man in waiting: Justin Oluransi. No one has access to the emperor without him.”

“He sounds like a dragon,” Will commented, a little unnerved by both the idea of actually following through with this plan and with talking about it so openly. 

“Quite the opposite,” Adam laughed, and William knew they were in for the story of how Adam had used to court all the men and women of noble standing. “Justin was - beautiful. Appealing. Married.” A flash of something almost manic swept across Adam’s face. “Everything I was looking for!”

William laughed as Denya’s face grew horrified. 

“He gave me a watch studded with diamonds,” Adam recalled, his shoulders shrugging in the luxury of it all. 

Denya leaned into Adam, and there was a fondness in his voice when he next spoke. “Did you love him?”

“Madly, my dear.”

William hadn’t heard that part of the story. He was sure he would have remembered if he had. 

“That’s so sweet,” Denya smiled. 

“But-” Adam smiled, and there was the same Adam that Will knew from years of conspiracy. “I loved the watch more.”

Denya rolled his eyes and turned away. 

“What happened to the watch?” William asked. If Adam maybe still had it, then-

“Oh, long gone with the old Russia. Like everything else.”

William turned away, not even making an effort to hide his disappointment and growing boredom as the train chugged on. He tuned out Adam’s rambling for his own sanity - something about how even though Adam was old and fat now, he could still use his classic Birkholtz charm to get Justin to help them. Although Will didn’t doubt that Adam was old, he didn’t think he was fat or charming. But he sure did hope that Adam could talk to this Justin person and convince him to let Denya see the emperor. 

He watched Denya stand up, walking to the windows on the side of the carriage to look out at the passing world. Denya’s whole body shook as he moved, making him look a little bit more like a royal mess than a royal prince. Denay smiled and smoothed his shirt as Will walked up behind him to stand close and look out the windows.   
He wondered what Denya could be thinking, but he had a pretty good idea. It was probably similar to William’s own thoughts about how this chance was all he had, and how he just needed to keep a grip and take a deep breath and see this through; then he could get the money he had needed his whole life, and he and Adam would go from there. 

Will followed Denya as he moved to sit back down. 

“It is a pretty day out,” Denya whispered, equally to himself and to Will and Adam, who sat on either side of him. 

“And it’s kinda cool, being on a train,” Will smiled. He’d never done this before; the speed at which the world flew by would have frightened him if it didn’t make him so excited. 

None of them mentioned how nervous this whole thing actually made them. Their escape was clouded by guilt in that this getaway was highly illegal. Will’s hands started shaking too, and something in his stomach twisted. 

“Hey,” he said to Denya. “Smile more. Calm down. We’re gonna be fine if we can get through this train ride.”

Denya looked up at him, his eyes more worried now than they had been before. “I know. We’re almost out of Russia.”

Any relief Will felt at Denya’s words was short-lived. His stomach sank as the train came to a too-sudden halt, and men in green uniforms and hats stepped on. He glanced back to look at them, then put his arm around Denya’s shoulders. 

“Don’t act suspicious. Remember, we have the right papers to be here,” he whispered as quietly as he could. “Look like we’re talking about something in your book.”

One of the officers stepped up next to the bench where Will sat, just a little too close for comfort. “Papers,” he demanded. 

“Good evening, sir,” Adam stood up. “Is there a problem?” he tilted his head to the side, just enough to look innocent. Will supposed that this was why Adam made such a talented conman. 

“We are looking for someone who is leaving the country illegally,” the officer said simply. 

Adam laughed, doing his best to distract the man from Will and Denya’s terrified faces. “Had the wrong papers, huh?”

“No. They had the right papers, just in the wrong name. Count Ippolitov.”

Shit shit shit shit. That was the man with the coattails who had kissed Denya’s hand and-

A bang went off from behind them: a gunshot. Denya’s shoulders rose to his cheeks and Will instinctively grabbed him, pulling Denya’s face into his shoulders protectively. 

“I didn’t - I didn’t see what happened,” Adam looked around, stunned. 

“We know what happened,” Will whispered, Denya beginning to heave. He was quiet at first, but his sobs got louder quickly. 

Adam put his hand on Denya’s shoulder. “Calm him down,” he instructed Will. “Any tears might betray us.”

“It’s okay,” Will squeezed Denya’s arm. “We’ll be safe soon.”

“That’s what the soldiers said when they were pointing their guns at us.” Denya looked up at Will. 

“What soldiers?”

“They said they were taking us somewhere safe. Tobi’s little heart was beating against mine-”

So that’s what this was about? Being in character? And of all the times to do this, right now was probably the worst. 

“There’s no one pointing guns at you!” William hissed. “You’re taking this too far, Denya!”

“But I’m not!” Denya shouted, and then realized that he was the only one talking, and lowered his voice. “I think I am him.”

William shushed him. “We’re almost out of Russia. And once we’re across the border, we’re safe.” He sat back and watched Denya’s face calm. “Better?”

Denya nodded. “Thank you.”

William took a deep breath, settling back down. “And in Paris, we’ll make a new life.”

Denya studied Will’s face, and William pretended not to notice. 

“Who do you think I am, William?” Denya asked, his voice shaking with every note. 

William sighed. At first, when he had met Denya, he had been a street rat like himself. Someone who was doing the best with what a cold world gave them, which wasn’t much. Then, he had been a ticket to Paris. Then, somehow, Denya had become a friend. An annoying friend with whom he fought all the time, but a friend. And then the music box planted a seed of doubt in his mind. Denya seemed so connected to the story they were trying to create, so interwoven with Derek Nurse and now this thing about the soldiers made Denya so afraid and William settled with a simple answer that wasn’t really simple at all. 

“I don’t know.”

Denya forced a laugh. “I get these ideas in my head, and I’m beginning to think they might be true,” he stood up awkwardly. 

William was about to speak when he noticed Adam standing over him. 

“What color papers do we have?” Adam’s voice was hurried, panicked, his shoulders squared firmly. 

“White,” William looked up at his friend. 

Adam’s soldierly posture almost broke. “They’re taking people with white passports off the train and shooting them.” The whole train car was watching the three of them now, but it didn’t matter. “When I make a mistake, it’s a big one.”

William pulled his bag over his shoulder and stood up. Denya grabbed his things as well. 

“We’ve gotta jump,” William decided as the train roared to life, picking up speed. 

“But-”

William laughed. He honest-to-god laughed in the face of being shot, and he went to a window and shoved the glass pane out. “But you’ve never done this before, huh your highness? It’s time you learned!” And he reached through the window, the eyes of everyone in the train car on him, and grabbed at metal bars on the side of the train, pulling himself through: out of the stuffy cage and into the fresh air. 

Denya followed, then Adam too. He heard screaming, and it could have been from the people inside the train or it could have been the wind or it could have been Denya or it could have been him. 

“Jump!” Adam yelled, and there was a flash of motion as all three of them did.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks so much for reading, it means so much to me!


	6. Journey To The Past

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Short little chapter!! I don't think it's possible to capture the beauty of Journey To The Past. No matter how many times I listen to it, I still get chills.   
> I tried to use some of the lyrics from the Spanish translation that they're using for the production in Madrid, because I love them a lot and think they bring something fun and new to the song. Also, it helped me avoid using the title in the chapter.

They were still in Russia, unfortunately. But they were alive. Although in honesty, Denya couldn’t say if it might be better to be dead on his way to Paris than alive and stuck in Russia.   
And they were walking, miles and miles in everything from the freezing midnight cold to the scorching noontime sun. Their bags got heavier with every passing minute. 

“Will, wait!” Adam called from his place at the back of their little pack. Denya turned around just in time to watch Adam collapse over his bag. “Denya can’t go any further. He’s exhausted.”

Denya rolled his eyes at the old man. “I’m fine!” he made his leaden legs walk back to Adam. “You’re the one who made us walk halfway across Russia.”

William turned around too, pulling his brimmed hat over his eyes and folding the map he had nervously examined and re-examined. “The Polish border is only ten kilometers away,” he touched Adam on the shoulder. “We’ll be safe there.”

And with the threat of pursuant authorities looming, Denya knew they needed to keep going. So they pressed on, despite lightning and thunder crashing around them. He had made a promise to William, Adam, and to himself. He wasn’t about to give up or give in now. 

In a Polish town, they worked for three days at a shop in exchange for some bicycles, which they rode for two days until they reached a bank of the Baltic Sea, and William heard about a boat to Germany. The three of them traded their bicycles for tickets (which wasn’t fun; Denya liked riding that bike), and they only stayed a few days in Germany before making their way to France. 

When they crossed the border in a car, it was like a weight lifted off their shoulders. Adam held out his arms, dropped his bag, and fell to the ground, literally kissing the dirt. “La belle France!” he said, laughing joyously as he stood back up, and Denya understood why. It was beautiful, all pinks and purples in the trees and the sapphire skies. It looked like the setting of a famous novel.

“It looks like Russia!” Will’s voice was incredulous. God, did that boy understand nothing?

“France looks nothing like Russia,” Adam hit William on the shoulder. “It looks like France!” He laughed at himself and clutched his hand to his ribs. “Look at me, I’m getting emotional,” he stomped his foot, “but the last time I was in Paris I was such a young man. God, I was handsome.”

“Musta been a long time ago, then,” William bit. 

Denya smiled at Adam but glared at William. “Will you please stop? I’m going to ask the driver what’s wrong.”

And he did, running up to the man who had taken them there for a reduced price and speaking easily in French to him. It was like he was programmed to do it. He ignored what he thought might be an admiring - or maybe stunned - look from William to keep the conversation going, and once he had the information he needed, he ran back to his frien- companions. 

“This is as far as he goes,” Denya explained in a hurry. “But we’re almost there! At the top of the hill, he said you can just see Paris!”

Adam looked like the younger version of himself that he loved to talk about as he stood up again. “Are you ready to be astonished?” he held up one hand in excitement, punched the air, and started climbing the hill. 

William watched Adam go before turning to Denya. “We made it!” he said, and he sounded almost shocked. 

“Y’know,” Denya blinked and felt the edges of his mouth turn up despite himself, “even when I was angry at you, I never doubted that we would.”

William looked taken aback. His shoulders rose, his chest fell. 

A breeze blew between the two of them, making their hair fall to one side.

“Thank you, Will.”

William shook his head and pointed up the hill. “Thank Adam. He did all of this”

“I can see the Eiffel Tower!” Adam shouted down at them, and William’s face lit up. “It’s true! It’s really there!” 

Will turned to look at Denya, then bolted away after Adam. Denya watched him run and turn into a tiny dot at the top of the hill. 

“Denya, come see!” he shouted at him. 

Denya hardly heard him. He took in a breath of the French air, and sat himself down on the suitcase that he’d brought all the way from Russia; the same one he’d been given at the hospital years ago.   
He’d been told many times by many people that life was full of choices, and that each of those choices changed the end result. No one had ever bothered to tell him that fear played a part in those, and that there were so many choices because the world was so wide - and so full of danger. He just hoped that his heart would keep up strength to fight this fight, that his courage would stick with him when he needed it. He could already tell that he would need it. Somewhere down this road that they’d traveled to get here, somewhere over the hill where Adam and Will stood, he knew that someone was waiting for him, their arms open already, as if expecting that he would arrive. He’d dreamed of that exact thing - a place to belong - many times, and he couldn’t lose hope now that something like that existed. And therein came the strength. 

Denya had never known who he was, or who he used to be. Looking around at the trees planted, the grass growing, he knew everything had its place. But not him. There wasn’t anything he wanted more than the knowledge that he was safe and wanted and home. The word ‘home’ made him laugh; for so long, it had only been an idea, but now it was within reach, and it felt unreal. He had to press on, because he didn’t know if he could ever be happy until he discovered the things for which he longed. He was going to take this road wherever it would take him, and go back to who he was, and on to find his future and the things his heart still needed to know. 

The world seemed to spin around him as he stood up and took off running up the hill, towards Adam and Will. He prayed that this road was the one he was meant to take, that it was the one that would lead him home at last.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And that's the end of act 1!! (It might be a bad time to mention that I STILL don't know who the emperor is. Is it Jack?? Is it Chowder?? Bitty??? An OC??? I'm not sure)


	7. Paris Holds the Key (To Your Heart)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Will's POV

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> yay act 2! This song was hard to write, since it's such a big dance number with just fun lyrics, but I hope I made it work. Dimity's solo is so sweet.

So yeah, maybe Will found Paris kind of beautiful. It wasn’t the rolling plains of Russia, or the quays of Petersburg, but it was full of laughter and light, cobbled streets and blue skies, and shops all around him that screamed that this was a place where money could be made and spent in style. 

“Welcome, mes amis,” Adam spread his arms out wide, like he wanted to call the whole city his friends, “here’s Paris.” He smiled at his own rhyme, and then continued, confidently walking backwards down the street. “This is a city where it doesn’t matter where you’re from. Forget all of that, and come this way,” he gestured to the Eiffel Tower, “and let the city open itself to you.”

Will smiled at him, fondly in spite of himself. 

“In Petersburg, none of us could have gotten anywhere. But in Paris!” Adam laughed to the sky, and flags fluttered in the breeze, as if laughing back at him. “In Paris, we can be anyone, and do anything we please.”

“Let’s hope that’s true,” Denya whispered to Will, who stifled a laugh. “We still need this to work.”

Ladies in short, swishy skirts passed them, moving to the beat of a song that seemed to only exist in their mind. 

Adam put his hands on his waist like a gentleman, and Denya and Will each linked their arms in his. They didn’t stop to bother with how their formation would hinder anyone from passing them. That wasn’t their problem. “Petersburg changed its name and pretended that in doing so, they moved into the modern age. Paris knew better,” Adam declared loudly. “Paris kept their name, and actually became modern!”

Will heard a car revving and figured Adam might be onto something with his assessment. 

“And still,” Adam nodded at a man on the sidewalk who was busy painting the Eiffel Tower, “everyone here is a writer, dancer, painter, jazz musician, or poet. They have money, and modern tools, and the luxury of time to fill.” He took a breath in. 

He did hear the faint sounds of a jazz song playing, and grinned to himself. If every day in Paris was as pretty as this one, he’d never miss Russia.   
Adam dropped his arms to his side, and Denya and Will moved away from him. When Denya moved to Will’s side, Will put his arm around Denya’s shoulders. 

“We’re going to have so much fun here.”

“Once we have money,” Will interrupted, and Adam scowled at him. 

“Yeah. That.” Adam fished in his pockets. “I’ve got a little bit left from when we worked. Shall we buy something to help us fit in?”

Denya’s eyes wrinkled at the edges. “Like what?”

“Like clothes,” Adam laughed. “Pants. A suit coat! Something we can wear to meet royalty!”

“Oh,” Will blinked. “Do we have enough for that and for food?”

Adam held all the money in the palm of his hand, counting it carefully. “If we spend wisely, then yes.”

“I vote that we should do it,” Denya nodded. “I’ve had this coat for the last five years.”

That settled it. The three of them stepped into the first clothing store they passed, and browsed for a few moments. William found that he didn’t even know what size pants he wore (only that he needed the ones marked ‘tall’), so he had to try on a few pairs in the back of the store. He ended up choosing something simple: black slacks, and a dark blue suit jacket over a plain white shirt.   
Adam went with something a little bit more daring. He came out of the back of the store in a pair of dark blue pants, a white shirt, and a blood red jacket. He gave a twirl for William to see what the whole outfit looked like and he had to admit that despite the ugliness of the outfit on a rack, Adam made it all work.   
Denya needed a bit more help with sizing and styling, so Adam and William sat outside on the street after paying for their outfits, leaving the rest of the money with Denya so he could spend it. William had to laugh; a few months ago, he wouldn’t have trusted anyone - except maybe Adam - with the money for his food and lodging. He still wouldn’t take kindly to anyone suggesting that he do so. But it seemed that Denya had broken a wall somewhere along the line.  
William glanced back into the store. 

“He’ll break your heart, William,” Adam breathed. 

Will’s heart froze. “What?”

“It’s the first rule,” he leaned in to talk to Will, keeping his voice soft. “Don’t mix business with pleasure.”

“As usual,” William stood up, suddenly irrationally angry, “you don’t know what you’re talking about.”

He heard the bell that was tied above the door to the shop ring and turned around. Instantly, he discovered that he didn’t mind being made to wait for Denya in the shop. It was worth it.  
Denya wore a pair of royal purple pants, fitted to his hips perfectly, a pale pink shirt, and a purple blazer that matched his pants. Will would have been ashamed to say that his first thought was: “it’s unfair for one person to look like that”.  
So what he said instead came out more like: “you didn’t spend too much money on that, did you?”

“No, actually,” Denya grinned, ignoring the acidity in Will’s voice. “It was cheaper than your clothes.”

Will hummed, and they all kept moving down the street. In the sweetness of the air, it was almost easy to forget that soon, they would have to part ways. The three of them would lie to the emperor, Denya would convince him that they were cousins, Adam would reunite with Justin and live happily ever after, and Will would get rich - and then go wherever he wanted.   
Paris held the key to their futures. And, looking at Denya, he realized that it held the key to his fate. Denya was going to be a prince now. Again. Whatever. The whole adventure would be over, and Will would be somewhere without Denya.   
He didn’t like the feeling that thought gave him: like he’d misplaced something, but he couldn’t figure out what it was.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks so much for reading, any feedback you'd like to give would be highly appreciated!


	8. Crossing a Bridge

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> this song always makes me cry, it's so beautiful

The three of them had a long day scouring the city for interesting tidbits, listening to Adam describing parts of the city he had once visited, and comparing the past and the present. William and Denya, of course, had never seen Paris before, and Denya couldn’t help but gape at all of the attractions. Petersburg was beautiful in many ways, and always would be. Petersburg was home. But Paris was the promise of something more for his life, and it was so filled with light and joy that could only walk around in awe. 

“God, I’m exhausted,” William said, rolling his shoulders after hours of walking. “And,” he said, realization blooming on his face, “we have a hotel room!”

He all but ran off in the direction of the hotel room. Denya watched him go, noticing the strange fondness that grew warmer and warmer in his chest. 

“Don’t use up all the hot water!” Adam called, and laughed loudly, slinging a heavy arm around Denya’s shoulders. “You know, I don’t think Will’s ever been in a real bathtub, with the way he’d so excited to see one.”

Denya laughed, not caring about how loud he was being. He enjoyed the sound of his own laughter, ringing off the cobbled streets and marble buildings in the purple evening, for what it was. Pure joy. There wasn’t anything wrong with that. 

“I need to find Justin,” Adam cracked his knuckles, the definition of a shit-eating grin on his face. “See if he’ll help us get this worked out, and get you into the palace.” 

Denya smiled at the idea. Him, in a palace. He wished he could travel back in time and tell himself from a year ago that his destination would be a palace in Paris. His past self never would have believed it. He wasn’t sure his current self believed it either. Every second was another time that he had to refrain from pinching himself. 

Adam sighed, and pulled at the hems of his coat. “I’ll try the Neva Club first. I’ve heard he hangs out there. And I’ve heard that the drinks are-” he kissed his fingertips. 

“I’ll be along soon,” Denya turned to look around at the Parisian streets, and when he turned around, Adam was already gone. “Alone. I’ll be alone.”

He smiled to himself softly. He was used to being alone, and had been his whole life. But something about being alone in Paris seemed different: like he wasn’t really alone. There were people everywhere, talking and laughing and playing music. To his right, on the street corner, a man in a large hat painted the purple sky with watercolors, making it look as woozy as Denya felt.   
The book in his hands practically fell open to the right page, and Denya began to read about where he was.

“The Pont Alexandre III Bridge is considered the most beautiful bridge in Paris. The Alexander Bridge, as it is affectionately called by Parisians, was named for Czar Alexander III.” Denya couldn’t keep a small gasp from escaping. He was beginning to believe more and more by the day that he was truly Prince Derek Nurse, and if that was true, then the Czar Alexander III was his grandfather, and the grandfather of the cousin he was coming to see. 

He looked up at the sky, bathing the river underneath the bridge in purple and pink light as the sun set. This was his grandfather’s bridge; he believed that. This bridge belonged to someone that Denya had never met. Denya belonged somewhere he’d never been, and he wondered if maybe this bridge could take him there.   
Denya took a few steps towards the middle of the bridge and looked up the Seine River. As boats came into Paris, they called out with their horns, and the sound echoed off the water. The calls and the light lit up the dark evening, and Denya wondered if maybe, someone would call for him. It was a ridiculous thought; no one would, not tonight. But maybe someone - on the other side of the bridge - wanted to see him. Maybe someone wanted to know where he was, because they had missed him. 

It was still hard to believe that he was actually in Paris. He had come all this way from Petersburg to find out who he was, and now here he stood. Alone, with lights twinkling around him and a trace of fear left in his heart.   
Denya supposed he could call this a halfway mark. Halfway between where he had been and where he was going.   
There was still time to turn back, if he wanted to. Denya could build a normal life in Paris, but he knew that he would never forgive himself for missing the opportunity if he did. This was too big.   
A group of birds took off from where they were perched on the bridge as Denya came closer, and he smiled as he watched them go. He felt like they did: in midair, unsure.   
But. It was a beautiful night, and he couldn’t say he minded the feeling of falling, and he was in Paris. He could only hope that someone else, someone who wanted him, waited for him, was in Paris too.   
Maybe he and his cousin were seeing the same night, right at that moment. Only Denya was on the left bank, and the emperor was on the right. They were so close to finding each other; Denya couldn’t look back now. He knew nothing of his cousin, only a few memories of when they were young. But he was Denya’s only hope, and he clung to the idea with every last bit of hope he could muster. 

But he couldn’t cross the bridge right then either - the hotel was in the opposite direction, and Denya needed to get along, back to William and Adam. He stole one last glance at the bridge before turning away, breathing in the lights that shone on the water. Each one of them reminded Denya of a promise, a clue, a sign. He hoped that one of them, just one, might lead him to his family, and his future.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you for reading! I really hope you liked it!


	9. The Land of Yesterday/The Count(ess) and the Common Man

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I might take a break from this fic next week, just to make sure I can get another fic or two moving. At the most, it'll be two weeks. Thanks for understanding!

Adam opened a giant white door slowly, stepping into the club. Jazz music played remarkably softly, more conducive to conversation than dancing. He allowed himself to listen in on the conversation of a group of women who sat nearby at a table. 

“The Russian Revolution was the last gasp of old Europe. With it, went our czar, and our way of life. Well, and now they’re saying The Great War will be the war to end all wars,” said one of them, fiddling with one of the many silver bangles on her wrist. 

“Yeah, right,” her friend across from her laughed. “Until the next one.”

The third woman rolled her eyes and twirled her hair around her finger. “You’re so cynical.”

“Of course I am! I’m Russian!”

As if in response to their discussion, a man nearby took the cigar out of his mouth and looked at two of the other men. “What was it that a great Russian poet said?”

“Which one?” asked a man in a white suit asked. “We have so many.”

And god. Adam had missed acting like Russian royalty, but he certainly hadn’t missed the snobbery that came with being around them. 

One of the men opened his mouth to say something, but he got cut off. 

“What does it matter?” someone yelled, and Adam turned his head to see who it was. There, perched on a high barstool in the middle of the front of the dancefloor, sat Justin, chin resting in his hand. “They all say the same thing. Past glories, present grief. It’s boring.”

Adam smiled at his old flame. Observing him, his hair had gotten a little grayer, which was good, because so had Adam’s. He still looked good though. In shape, obvious even beneath the suit jacket he wore, and still sharp in a biting, witty way. 

“The only place that’s not like that is the Neva Club,” Justin continued. “This is the only damn place with Russians in it that isn’t pathetic all the time. This is the only place where time has stood still.”

As Justin got up and began to talk with people around him, Adam remembered what Justin used to be like. Regal, royal, floating through the palace like it was built only for him.   
Now, complaining with people in Russian about the things they left behind - fanfares, sedan chairs, coaches, diamond brooches - he looked anxious, like any moment, he might be snapped out of his imagining, and thrust back into a state of panic, like he had been on the night the revolution began. He had been the one to grab diamonds from the display case that night and shove them in the empress's hand; he could only assume that Justin had thought to take some as well. He hoped so, at least. Justin deserved to have some of the nice things he used to live with. Some memory of what used to be. Adam knew how to adjust back to being a royal, even if he missed it. Justin wouldn’t have been able to do the same thing, obviously. 

Adam continued to lurk, listening in on conversations. They droned on and on, all in the same pompous voices of nobility. He heard something about having tea and playing cards with the czar, about how they used to be called “Countess so and so” or “Count something or other”.   
Everything they discussed was so foreign to him. Of course he remembered when he had been given the opportunity to become royal, and then when it had been taken away from him. But he had been living on the streets for so long now that it seemed insensitive for these people, in their suits and fur coats, to complain of having a flat with only two bedrooms. Adam thought of Will, who had lived on the streets his whole life, and how, as he told Denya, he’d never been in a bathtub. The joke had seemed funny at the time. Now, he wasn’t so sure.   
He supposed this was why the revolution happened in the first place. Nobility putting on airs and acting pompously while people starved in the streets. He had to remind himself no to be bitter: it was much worse in Russia now than it had been before.

He tried to blend in, ordering drinks that were as expensive as the suit he was wearing, but mostly he bit his tongue and watched Justin dancing. He could still move like no one he’d ever seen before. Even with people around him performing similar traditional moves, Justin carried a kind of glee in his every step that was unparalleled. 

After a particularly strong gulp of something green, Adam found the courage inside himself to go ask Justin to dance. He stepped up behind him, tapped Justin on the shoulder, held out his hand, and-

Justin pulled him into a hug. “Oh my god!” he yelled, pushing backwards. “I thought- I thought the bolsheviks lined you up for their firing squad! I,” he shook his head, and took a breath, “I mourned for months.”

“They did,” Adam laughed softly, smiling at Justin. “When they gave the order, no one could pull the trigger. What can I say?” he shrugged. “It’s a gift. I melt hearts.”

Justin rolled his eyes.

“And you still melt mine,” Adam added quietly, touching Justin’s hand. “I crossed a continent for this moment.”

Justin hummed. “You’re up to something, aren’t you?”

“Didn’t you get my letter?” Adam asked, pulling Justin out the door and into an open courtyard. 

“I tore it up,” Justin admitted. “I thought it was an imposter.”

“You’ve grown cold, Justin,” Adam muttered, sitting down next to him.

He hummed again, angrier this time. “The revolution helped with that, I think. And the emperor, watching week after week as imposters of his cousin come to steal his fortune.” He sighed. “I’m not the man you remember, Adam.”

“Well, I think you’re even more handsome than I remember you.”

Justin smiled. “And you sound like you have some scheme up your sleeve.”

“Y’know, ever since I saw you in court for the first time,” Adam grinned, artfully avoiding the subject, “I knew I was beneath you.”

“You’re right. You were,” Justin teased, and Adam pretended to scoff. 

“Hmm, maybe. But I flirted with you, and eventually you gave in. Do you remember that part of the scandal?”

Justin stood up. “Of course. We were the best gossip in Petersburg for a while,” he laughed, and Adam watched his eyes wrinkle around the edges and stubbornly didn’t think about how that made his heart skip a beat. “Remember when we’d sneak off to Peterhof Palace? When we came back, it seemed like everyone knew what we did, except my husband.”

Adam shook his head, standing up to follow. “Counts never know a thing. That’s why you liked me so much - I was enough of an outsider to be perfect for you.”

“Well,” Justin ran his tongue over his lip. “Perfect right up until you stole my diamond ring.”

Adam looked at the ground. “Right. Well.”

A moment of silence passed between them, in which he noticed that the moon had risen over Paris. No longer did twilight bathe the city in pink and purple, but the glow of lamps lit up the dark courtyard with yellow, highlighting the plants and the wooden porch swing hanging from a huge tree. It moved in the breeze like a breath. 

“So?” Justin said roughly, breaking the silence. 

“So what?”

“So, what’s your big plan? Not that I’m going to help you or anything, I just want to know.”

Adam sucked in a breath. “Right, that. Um. Can I-”

“Can you what?”

He let the breath out and surged forward, grabbing Justin’s shoulders, wrapping his hands on his back, and - with all the memories of the land of yesterday and what he and Justin used to have - let himself fall into a kiss. Justin bent underneath him before pushing upwards and inwards, taking Adam’s breath away. 

Adam pulled back, eventually, and grinned, his face undoubtedly embarrassingly red. “Still want to hear my scheme?”

“Please,” Justin said, and despite the roll of his eyes, his face was blissful, and his tone was remarkably sweet.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks again so much for reading! I love writing holsom


	10. In a Crowd of Thousands

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Will's POV

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks for being so patient with me taking a week off of this fic; it really did me some good.

Will wished more than anything that he could sleep that first night in the hotel. Everything was perfect: the bed was soft, the room was warm, his old clothes had all been folded and set aside on a chair, his new clothes hung neatly in the closet. But he laid in bed dressed in an undershirt and the only extra pair of pants he owned before leaving Russia, soft but too short after years of wear, unable to fall asleep. Everything was perfect in a way that was altogether unfamiliar for him. He’d never had this, and his brain wouldn’t accept it, no matter how much he tried.   
He sat straight up when he heard a scream, piercing and terrified from the room next door. Denya. Wasting no time, he grabbed the old shirt from the chair, shrugged it on, and knocked on Denya’s door before pushing it open. 

“Denya?” he asked, his voice louder than intended, scaring even him. 

“I keep hearing voices,” Denya turned to look at Will from where he stood next to his bed. His face was gaunt, pale as the bedsheets. 

William stepped closer and put his arms out in front of him, so that Denya could grab onto him if he wanted to. “That’s all they are,” he whispered. “Voices. You’re having a nightmare, but you’re okay.”

Denya staggered forward, grasping Will’s wrist and forcing him to step backwards. “Stay with me, please, Will,” he breathed, his voice panicked. “I’m too scared to-”

William nodded, not knowing how he could say no to that.   
The two of them sat down on the bed, and Will pretended not to notice how the sheets were as untidy as Denya’s hair. 

“Who do you think I am, William?” Denya asked, not meeting Will’s eyes. 

Will leaned back, taking his hands away from Denya. “If I was the emperor,” he paused, wiping his hands on his pants, “I would want you to be Derek.”

“You would?” Denya’s shoulders fell. “Really?”

“Yes. I would want him to be a handsome, and strong, and intelligent young man.”

Denya’s chest rose and fell softly, and he tilted his head to the side. “Is that what you think I am?”

Will smiled in spite of himself. “It’s what you’ve become.”

Denya folded in on himself, smiling, his skin glowing. William’s breath hitched slightly at the sight. “Well. Thank you.” 

“You’re welcome.”

“I was beginning to wonder if you were ever going to pay me a compliment,” Denya fidgeted with his hands in his lap, and William rolled his eyes happily. “But do you really think I might be him?”

Will shook his head, and looked at the ground. “I want to believe you’re the little boy I saw once, many years ago.”

“I don’t understand. You never told me you saw Derek.”

William took a deep breath. There wouldn’t be an easy way to get out of this conversation. “Well, yeah. It was June of the year I turned ten. I try not to think about it often, but when I do-” he shook his head and turned it to look at Denya, who looked enraptured already. “My dad refused to take me to the parade, since he was so set on life without the monarchy. But I snuck out and went anyway, because I needed to see what it was he hated so much.”

Denya smiled, and Will wondered if he had thought something about his inability to stay in one place. He ignored it. 

“There were so many people there,” William said, his shoulders hunching at the memory. “At least a thousand just on that block. But I remember seeing Derek, because when I did, I couldn't even feel anyone around me.” William didn’t know if he was tired, and that caused him to be so honest, or if he really wanted to tell Derek this, and Denya might be the closest he’d ever get. “He sat with his back perfectly straight, like he was already the czar, even though he was like, two years younger than me. People were so excited to see him, cheering and yelling and clapping, but all I could do was stare.”

A breeze blew through the room from the open window, and it made William want to keep talking, despite the fact that not even Adam had ever heard this story. He stood up, as if propelled by something invisible, and stepped forward. 

“I don’t know what came over me, but I started to run and to call out his name as the crowd on the road got louder and louder. I reached out with my hand, and I looked up at the carriage where he sat and-”

“-And?” Denya asked from the bed. 

William turned around to look at him. “He smiled at me.”

Denya took in a deep breath, and Will felt some sort of surge of pride at how he had managed to capture Denya’s attention for this long. He looked out towards the empty hotel room, and pretended he could still see the parade on that day. 

“The parade moved on, and then I couldn’t see him anymore because the sun was in my eyes, but if I could go back in time,” he laughed with embarrassment, “I’d go after him, even though there were all those people there. Help him stay safe when it - the revolution - came.”

“You’re making me feel I was there too,” Denya leaned forward and laughed softly. 

Will shrugged. “Well, maybe you were. Try to make it a part of your story.”

Denya pursed his lips and began timidly. “A parade-”

“Yeah,” Will whispered, not quite knowing why he felt such a strong need to encourage Denya. 

“Passing by. It was, um, hot,” Denya continued, his eyes flashing through every detail William had mentioned, “not a cloud in the sky.”

William nodded, smiling. Denya would be good at this improv thing if he could get a little more confidence. 

“Then I saw this boy. Despite the crowd, for some reason he stood out to me. He was, um,” William blushed as Denya’s eyes raked over him, “thin, not too clean.”

Will feigned offense, mostly just to get another laugh out of Denya. Once he realized what he was doing, he kicked himself mentally. What was that? 

Denya kept talking, oblivious to Will’s embarrassment. “There were guards everywhere, set up to protect all of - us, but he dodged them nimbly. It was like he wanted to be seen amidst the crowd.”

Denya’s face clouded over, and his voice got lower. “Then he called out my name, and he started to run-” like he didn’t realize he was doing it, he stood up “-through the sun and the heat, and people. I tried not to smile. I wasn’t supposed to, my mother had scolded me for looking childish the last time I’d smiled at a passerby. But I smiled anyway, I couldn’t help it, he looked so in awe. And then. And then he bowed.”

William’s heart skipped a beat and he sat up. “Wait. I didn’t tell you that.”

“You didn’t have to,” Denya said, and then turned quickly to look at Will. “I remember!”

Somehow, it didn’t shock Will that much. In fact, it made perfect sense; he just hadn’t been sure until now. He reached his arms out and grabbed onto Denya’s forearms, and watched his eyes light up. Denya pulled his hands away, so that his fingertips rested in Will’s palms. “You found me again.”

“There’s no crowd here this time,” Will whispered. 

Denya leaned in just as Will realized what this meant, and whose hands he was holding. This was a prince with whom he was face to face. 

Will got down on one knee, crossing his hands at the wrist and setting them on his leg. He looked up at Denya, then down. It must have been a funny sight to see one boy in pajamas bowing to another, but like he’d said, no one was here.   
He looked up again at Denya’s face, and just registered the shock. “Your highness,” he said solemnly. 

“Stand up,” Denya - Derek whispered, and Will did. 

“I should. I should leave,” Will swallowed heavily, and left before he could hear if Denya would agree or protest.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I loved writing this chapter, let me know if you enjoyed reading it!


	11. Meant to Be

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter is super short, and the next one probably will be as well. But this song and the next one are super short, and I couldn't merge them together without changing povs within the chapter and I didn't want to do that so

The ballet reminded Adam of lost things from long ago. Royal music, fancy dress, high ceilings, and a feeling that he could walk on the air in front of him. The smell of alcohol lingered in the air. These people really weren’t doing themselves much good by pretending to still be rich and Russian. All they did was hurt themselves when they remembered what was real. Still, he supposed it was the only way they had to cope, unlike him, who had to return to the poverty he’d once known. 

The emperor entered, and Adam smiled. After all these years, Jaques Zimmermann still looked so much the same: tall and broad-shouldered, with a stoic face that only faltered when he looked at his husband.   
Eric Bittle looked the same, too. Same height, same blonde hair, although he had gotten a little wider around the waist and earned some silver atop his head. In Adam’s head, whenever he thought of Eric Bittle, the emperor consort, there was a smile involved. In old Russia, Erica always offered a smile to anyone he could find. Now, his face was nearly as bleak as his husband’s. Revolution had not been kind to either of them. Hopefully, if Denya was really Derek, Adam and Will would be bringing some happiness back into their lives with the return of the emperor’s cousin. 

Justin trailed behind the two of them, and embraced Adam with a kiss on the cheek as Jaques and Eric entered the theater. Adam nodded at his - whatever Justin was now - and watched the rest of the theater lobby as old royalty met old money. 

Will stepped into the room, wearing a new suit that Justin had given him, and Adam smiled, motioning him over. 

“Your tie is crooked,” he whispered, and Will let him fix it. “You look like you got dressed in thirty seconds.”

“Can’t have that for when we present him to the emperor,” Will replied, emphasizing ‘him’ like it was the name of God. 

Adam nodded, knowing that Will was right. “Your shoes are untied too, but I think you can handle fixing that.”

William laughed quietly, and bent down to tie his shoe. As he was switching from his right foot to his left, Adam watched Denya all but float across the room, touching down in front of Will. He looked up, and the expression fell from his face. 

Oh. 

As Will stood up, offering his arm to Denya, Adam processed what had just happened. Will and Denya had more than certainly fallen for each other; it was obvious in the way they moved.   
Adam couldn’t decide if he should take credit or blame for this one. After all, he had been the one to make them dance together, all the way back in the Yusupov Palace. He never should have let that happen. Denya was going to be a prince - he had worked so hard, and he had become radiant and confident in the last two months. No longer was he the timid, quick to anger boy they’d met in Russia. No one could take this away from Denya. No one had worked harder than Denya.   
And Will would be nothing more than a commoner. It wouldn’t work out, that much was obvious. Poor Will, to be stuck so far below the person with whom he’d fallen in love. If anyone knew how that felt, it was Adam. And Will didn’t deserve that, not when he’d worked as hard as Denya. 

He didn’t know how he hadn’t seen this. He and William had thought of everything they would need for the trip (even if they’d gotten a few minor details, like the papers, wrong), and they had planned things out almost to the minute. He’d known this scheme inside and out. How he forgot to consider romance, especially with Justin on his mind, was beyond him. 

The ballet was going to start soon. He took his seat.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> god I love these characters a whole lot


	12. Quartet at the Ballet/Everything to Win

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> finally a longer(ish) chapter! I may or may not have paused while writing this to read some Anastasia fanfic. Some of them were really great, actually

Tonight was the evening, and they were in the right place. Will hated to think it. The last thing he wanted to do was to be rid of Denya now, the day after he’d learned that he was the same prince he’d seen all those years ago. The irony of the situation was not lost on him; he knew full well that it was laughable how at the beginning of the trip, all he’d wanted was for Denys to be out of his life, and now he feared to lose him.   
His eyes followed Denya’s gaze, and he realized that he was staring at the emperor. Jack Zimmermann.   
As the Danseur Noble picked up the Primera Ballerina and twirled, Denya’s hand found Will’s forearm and squeezed. Without letting himself think, Will put his free hand atop Denya’s. If Will needed something - someone - to ground him now, then he could be more than certain Denya did too. He must have been so scared, on edge with how much this could change his life.   
More dancers twirled onstage, and Jack Zimmermann elbowed his husband and nodded at Denya, who didn’t see them looking - too entranced by the ballet. But Will couldn’t have missed it. Eric Bittle raised his eyebrows and shrugged noncommittally, and then Jack Zimmermann shook his head and focused his eyes back on the dancers. 

Will snuck another look at Denya and made a resolution. No matter what, this boy was going to find the home, love, and family he’d wanted so much. Denya wanted someone to hold him, keep him safe, rescue him if need be - or was that what Will wanted for Denya? Nevertheless, if Jack Zimmermann wasn’t that person, Will would be. But he had to hope Jack Zimmermann would be that person; Will was a street rat, and the emperor was, well, the emperor. If anyone could provide for Denya and keep him happy, it was royalty, and not Will. So whatever he had to do to help Denya get what he wanted, he would do gladly. 

The ballet ended. Dancers took their bows in front of a cheering audience. Will didn’t know when Adam had left their box, but he must have taken his leave sometime during the show. Will held out his arm like a gentleman and Denya took it, smiling up at him like this was a silly thing to do, like they were school children passing notes. But this was very serious.   
They made their way into the foyer of the theater, arm in arm. Across the crowd, Will spotted Adam and another man - Justin Oluransi, judging by the way Adam was hanging on his every word - standing in a corner. As they walked up, Will caught the tail end of their conversation. 

“What have you talked me into?” Justin was saying, tugging on the sleeves of his dress coat. 

“Really, Rans,” Adam touched his shoulder. “Just wait until you see him. If it’s not him, I’ll-”

Will coughed loudly, and both of them turned around. Denya lifted his hand off of Will’s arm and straightened his back, resting his hands at his sides. 

Justin looked Denya up and down once and dropped to one knee. “Your highness,” he whispered, stunned. 

Denya rushed forward and touched Justin’s arms. “You musn’t,” he said, smiling, as the two of them stood up together. 

“How about that?” William whispered to Adam, stepping closer to him. 

“I think we did a good job, Will,” Adam laughed under his breath. 

Justin lifted his hands to touch Denya’s shoulders. “You’ve grown up so much, young man. Can we - can I get you anything?”

William stepped forward. “We can celebrate after we meet the emperor, and see if he feels the same way you do.”

“Are you ready?” Justin asked.

Denya nodded, lifting his chin high. They walked through a door together, leaving the common men alone. Adam moved to the far corner of the room, while Will moved closer to the huge white door that had closed behind them. 

“I wonder what they’re saying,” he said aloud, either to himself or to Adam. “I wonder how long it’ll take to prove that Denya is Derek.”

“You sound worried,” Adam commented offhandedly, leaning back in a chair and crossing one leg over another. 

Will shook his head. “I know. It’s strange, I normally don’t get in a bunch over things.”

“Well, you can sit down, or you can pace around and stew in your thoughts,” Adam closed his eyes. “Doesn’t matter to me.”

Will thought about sitting down, but something about that seemed so wrong, especially with all the energy he had in his legs. He stayed standing, but resolved to be quieter from now on, at least until Denya came back out. Adam didn’t seem to want to hear him, and he didn’t want royalty to hear his rambling. 

But it was quiet if he wasn’t talking. Silent. That could mean two things: the emperor had recognized Denya as his cousin and was whispering about how thankful he was to have found him again, or the emperor had taken one look at Denya, believed him to be an imposter, and walked right out. No. He would assume it was good, and have that be the end of his worrying. Besides this plan was foolproof.   
Nothing is foolproof. He tapped the side of his head, like he was knocking on wood, just in case. This was supposed to go a certain way. One boy got rich, the other boy got a family. Funny how if this worked, Denya would get both. If it didn’t, Will had at least grown his family by adding Denya to it. Really, they had everything to win here. There was no way this could go wrong, by those standards. That didn’t quell his nervous stomach. 

With his mind racing, inevitably his thoughts found a new path. Denya - Derek - and Will had met before. Seen each other before, at least. At the parade, in Russia, in June. And they had found each other again, despite every thread of fate that might have been against them. Maybe fate worked in ways like that more than once. Maybe William could get lucky, and his path would cross Denya’s again. Maybe it wouldn’t. And wouldn’t that have been the dream, to never see Denya again, if he was still who he was a month ago?   
But he wasn’t that boy anymore. The old boy would have been glad that he and Adam and Denya were breaking free of Old Russia, of poverty, of amnesia. But nothing was what it used to be.   
He couldn’t have known how important Denya would become to him. But the fact of the matter was that he did. 

“Conman and prince get their wish,” he muttered. “And a fairytale comes true.”

He may have had everything to win, but it was becoming obvious that if Denya left, he would be losing something too.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks so much for reading! I hope you enjoyed! A comment or kudo would make my day


	13. Once Upon a December (Reprise)

The room where Jack and Eric was grand, the kind of thing Denya had only seen in his dreams. White curtains draped the windows looking out on the Parisian streets, portraits of dancers in gold-adorned frames lined the walls, and the emperor and his husband sat on a red velvet couch. 

“Your highness,” Justin addressed Jack, “there’s someone I think you should meet.”

Jack swallowed heavily and didn’t look up at Justin, Denya, or Eric. Instead, he looked at the wall. “An imposter, Justin, I know his kind too well. You know what I said about them; they only want money and to break my heart over and over.”

Denya turned on his heel, the shiny black shoes and fancy jacket suddenly weighing him down. He stepped back into the main foyer, and looked up to see Will running his hands through his hair nervously. 

“What happened?” Will straightened up. 

“He turned me away. Said I was an imposter,” Denya said, trying to keep his breathing steady despite his whirling head, caterwauling that he was only an imposter, and that Will had tricked him into it. 

William stepped forward, leaning towards the doorway. “Well I’ll tell him the truth.”

“Which truth, Will?” Denya heard himself yell, and he stepped forward to block William’s way. “That I was just a pawn in your scheme? That you tricked me into believing I could be someone - someone important, loved, worthy?” He put his hand against Will’s chest, pushing backwards. But he couldn’t ignore how his heart thumped through his skeleton, vibrating Denya’s hand. “That you’re the one who really deserves to be turned away? You know,” he shook his head, listening to how his words echoed off the walls of the theater. “I was desperate, and cold, and hungry when I met you. But I wasn’t dishonest. And now I am. And I hate you for that.”

Denya shoved Will aside and left, running into the more dimly lit hallway. 

He somehow got to the hotel; he was tired, but mostly seething at the truth. Even though he had no idea where he could go, he pulled out his suitcase and began to go through it. He had to get out of reach of William and Adam somehow.   
Like the Devil, the two of them came through the door. 

“What is this?” he yelled at them, not gracing them with a greeting. 

“A shirt I bought for you-” Will started to say.

“-I don’t want anything from you. You use me like a pawn,” he chucked the shirt at Will, “and lied to me, forced me to lie.” Denya picked up the suitcase and carried it across the room. 

“Where are you going?” Will followed, close enough so Denya couldn’t get away but not so close he could be threatening. 

Denya turned on his heel. “Anywhere that’s far from you! That poor man’s life has been nothing but suffering and pain, his family’s dead - murdered. And that wasn’t punishment enough, so you decided to use me to take money from him.”

“Denya,” Adam crooned, walking over to him with outstretched hands. 

“No wonder you were dismissed from court!” Denya bit at him. “You deserve to go back to Russia. You both do.” He pointed at Will before turning around and shoving the last of his clothes into his case. “How stupid I was, to fall into a trap.”

As he closed the lid, he thought about all the things he had tried to learn during this. It went beyond manners, etiquette, and family trees. This was about how he had learned to be someone else, someone strong and brave and intelligent and fiercely kind. Someone who had both a past and a future. 

He slammed his case down on the chair and turned around to talk to William and Adam again. He didn’t know what he’d say, but he’d think of something. Something about how they had taken everything away from him. Denya opened his mouth to speak, but neither Will not Adam looked at him. 

“Your Royal Majesty,” Denya dropped to his knee as Jack Zimmermann looked back at him. 

“I think history demands we play this game until the end,” the emperor sighed as Denya stood up.

“Please, won’t you sit down?” he asked the man. 

Zimmermann shook his head. “There’s no need for that. I will be brief. Who are you?”

Denya swallowed heavily. He would have thought, but he knew he didn’t have time for insecurity. “I believe I am the son of -”

“Spare me my family history,” Jack waved his hand harshly. “It’s in every bookstore in Paris, anyone can read it.”

“I didn’t think you’d be so cruel,” Denya said honestly. He hadn’t, really. When he thought of his cousin, he thought of what it must have been like to play in the lawn with someone a few years older, who was interesting and smart and funny. 

“I’ve gotten older. Kindness is but a luxury.”

“My cousin,” Denya said, straightening his back, “was the most kind person imaginable.”

“That was before they murdered everyone he loved and sent him to France,” Zimmermann replied, but Denya barely heard him.

“He, um, he smelled like oranges and maple when I hugged him goodbye. A cologne-” he remembered, and sat on the fancy couch between the two of them as he furrowed his forehead “-made specially for him as a gift from a German dignitary.”

Zimmermann looked confused. “How dare you sit without my permission?”

Denya stood up hastily, more than scared by the gray-haired man in front of him.

“Oh nevermind. Sit, you have my permission.” 

Denya sat back down, folding his arms in his lap. The emperor sat down as well, folding his coattails neatly. 

“Who was my favorite tutor?” he asked, tilting his head up. 

Denya didn’t have to hesitate. “You didn’t have one. You would throw tantrums and,” he laughed, “your father would dismiss them. Oh,” he realized. “I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have said that.”

“It was a trick question,” Zimmermann said, and there was a shine of a smile on his face. “You’re clever, I’ll grant you that.” He leaned far forward and his eyes darted across his face. “I’m trying to see the resemblance. Hold still.”

Denya did as he was told. 

“Hmm. I admit there’s some similarity. Name the three-”

He took a deep breath. “Why don’t you want me to be Derek?”

“Loneliness is constant. I am not alone, I admit. Eric helps; I don’t think he knows how to do anything else,” Zimmermann nodded. “But it’s constant, and it never disappoints. You Dereks, however, always do.”

“If you give me a chance, maybe I won’t.”

Zimmermann leaned forward. “I don’t believe Derek exists. He has been dead for years.”

“Oh,” Denya breathed. “You don’t want to believe it.”

“What was your mother’s full title?”

“Princess of-,” Denya started to say, the words hurting like poison as he spoke. 

“Actually it was-”

“She was mama to me!” Denya couldn’t keep the words from exploding, and he couldn’t keep tears from flowing. He wiped his face on his hand. “She was mama to all of us.”

“You’re a very good actor,” Zimmermann said. “The best yet, in fact. But I’ve had quite enough. You all cry at some point. But tears will get you nowhere.” He paused for a moment, and took a breath. “Your young man told me you weren’t part of his scheme.”

“He’s right,” Denya looked up. “I wasn’t.”

“See, he believes you are Prince Derek. And he thinks there’s a good chance you are my cousin. He said you’ve become to believe it yourself.”

Denya nodded. “I believe it with all my heart, I do. But I can’t be him unless you recognize me.”

“Well, you can’t be anyone unless you recognize yourself,” Zimmermann admonished. 

He sighed and looked down at his lap. “I know that.”

“If you are not Derek,” Zimmermann said, pretending not to notice Denya’s returning tears, “you have killed me as surely as they killed my family in that cellar.” He looked away sharply. “Do you know what it means to lose everything? My parents, my siblings, everything I loved and held dear, gone in a moment, and for what? The good of Russia?” he voice bitter, and rightfully so, as he held out his arms to the room, like he was asking the walls for answers.

Denya got the feeling he wasn’t supposed to reply. 

“I’ll ask you again one more time,” Zimmermann looked at him. “Be very careful what you answer. Who are you?”

He could only answer honestly. “I don’t know anymore. Who are you?”

The man next to him looked down, and his shoulders sank. “An old man who remembers everything the way it should have been and nothing the way it was. I am unreliable. A story of the heart, not the mind. I only want this journey to end.” He looked away, his voice sobbing dryly.

Denya didn’t know what to say, but he did remember an object, hidden away in a drawer in that very hotel room. He stood up, not caring if he hadn’t been given permission to do so, and opened the drawer slowly. 

“Do you remember the last time you saw Derek?” he asked Jack Zimmermann. “You gave him a music box your family had made for him. I believe,” he held up the tiny, ornate trinket, “that this was it.”  
He opened the lid and turned the key, and it began to play a soft tune, twinkling and sweet.

Zimmermann blinked and inhaled in surprise. “We had a song we would sing to each other at night when I was at your home or you were at mine, before we would go to bed.”

“Far away,” Denya said, the words coming to him easily, “long ago, glowing dim as an ember-”

“Things my heart used to know,” Jack sang in a whisper, and Denya joined in to finish the song.

“Once upon a December.”

He looked up at Jack, who leaned in to hug Denya. “Derek,” his cousin - his cousin - breathed into Derek’s shoulder.


	14. Everything to Win (reprise)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Aaa only one chapter to go after this!!!  
> Thanks for being patient with updates (if there’s anyone still reading this)

They pulled Derek away and threw him in a red suit. He didn’t know who ‘they’ were, and he bit his tongue to keep away a quip about how they were the monarchy, not the people’s Russia, so shouldn’t they be wearing anything _but_ red? They even put a crown on his head, all gold and much more regal than anything he’d ever been used to. The chain around his neck was golden too, and he fidgeted with it until Justin came in. 

“Your majesty,” he bowed at the hip slightly. 

“Oh don’t do that,” Derek rolled his eyes so hard his head lolled. 

Justin laughed. “You’re not the young prince you used to be, huh? I remember you used to love people bowing to you when you were,” his eyes scanned Derek’s face, as if searching for something, “five years old. Maybe younger, I can’t remember. Either way, you thought it was the funniest thing.”

 

“A few years on the street can change so much, then,” Derek replied. 

Justin nodded in understanding. “So can revolution. But you’ll need to revert to your roots in a moment here. They want to take photographs of the lost prince, and you’ll need to look regal.”

“How am I supposed to do that?” he asked, the crown feeling heavier by the minute. 

“Just pretend,” Justin laghed. “Like nothing’s changed. If you have to be that boy you used to be, do that. Or better yet, let your royal blood carry you when you can’t carry yourself. Lord knows your cousin does some combination of those enough.”

As the shutter clicked and the light flashed in front of him, he ran those words over in his head. He could do this: he would let his royal blood carry him. After all, the blood in his veins overflowed with grandeur. He stepped lightly, the heels of his shoes clicking on marble floors.   
The photographer eventually called for Derek to reach his hand out to Jack, and he did so willingly, a surge of - joy? pride? relief? - rushing through him when Jack laid an arm over Derek’s shoulders. Eric joined them as well a few photographs later, short enough that he stood in front of his husband, but confident enough that he almost looked more naturally noble. 

A laugh echoed through the hallway as soon as the photographer left. “Surely,” Derek heard, and he turned his head to see a stout man with a beard that was probably once blonde or brown, but was long since gray. “Surely you don’t believe this is Derek?”

He heard Jack hum, but Derek couldn’t close his mouth when it opened on its own. “Count Leopold! With your balding hair, frumpy posture, and - vodka breath!” He heard what he was saying, and he saw the look on the man’s face, but he was so excited to remember something so easily that he didn’t much mind. He gasped. “No wonder my parents laughed at you behind your back. Um, I believe they called you ‘Count Mincing Manners’!” 

Jack laughed, and Derek wasn’t sure he’d heard him do that before. “Indeed they did.”

Count Leopold turned on his heel and left. Derek giggled in spite of himself, and turned to Adam in the corner, who grinned at him. 

“Now,” Eric said, “I am going to prepare both myself and the main hall for the press conference this evenin’. You two stay and talk about -” he shot Jack a meaningful look, and Jack nodded. “Good.” Eric pressed a kiss to Jack’s cheek, standing on his tiptoes to do so.   
Derek smiled at him as he walked out. 

“I think the press conference will be something to go down in history,” Jack said, almost to himself. 

“I think so too,” Adam spoke up, and touched Jack’s arm before looking up at the emperor’s face and realizing what he’d done. 

“I remember you,” was all Jack said. 

Justin’s face grew blank. “Quit while you’re ahead, Holtz,” he whispered. 

“Um, thank you, your majesty. Goodbye, your majesty,” Adam bowed, and left as quickly as he could. 

Jack shook his head at Justin. “I never liked that man.”

“Ah, he’s not so bad,” Justin shrugged, and then had a moment of realization similar to Adam’s. “I mean, you’re right, your majesty, he’s horrible. I mean,” he twisted his face, clearly unsure of whether to speak politely or truthfully. “I should go as well.”

Jack rolled his eyes once he was alone with Derek. “Get used to people agreeing with everything you say,” he advised, smiling after Justin. “Even people who know you trust them.”

Derek recoiled at the idea. “That isn’t right.”

“No, but it’s the way it is. Now,” Jack looked around the room as if trying to preserve some air of deniability, “where is your young man?”

“William? He’s not my young man,” Derek shook his head. “And I don’t really care where he is. I’m still angry at him.”

“For what? Reuniting you with your family, even accidentally?” Jack laughed. “Surely you know he loves you. When he refused my reward for finding you, I thought to myself: Derek has found himself another kind of prince. One of character, not birth, much like my own Eric.”

He couldn’t say anything. Actually, he hadn’t known Will loved him. Hoped, maybe. “Um.”

“Derek. You have made this the happiest day of my life. Make sure it’s yours as well.” Jack touched his elbow gently. 

Derek nodded, thinking through his options. He could abandon Will (it was only fair, really, since William abandoned him first), and go to the press conference, declaring that he really was the lost prince. He’d get fame, fortune, and most importantly, family. Or he could desert the press conference, forgo being called the prince, and find Will, armed with the new knowledge that Jack had given him. He didn’t even know where to look, or what he’d say to Will if he found him. And, he wondered, if Jack might rescind the position if Derek walked away. After all, it was courting below his status. He couldn’t give up his newfound family, his last shred of hope, whatever boy crossed his path.   
But this wasn’t ‘whatever boy’. This was Will. And hadn’t Derek said before that William and Adam had become his family? So did he need his cousin, if he’d found people on whom he could rely? 

Jack interrupted his thoughts, as if he was a mind reader. “We will always have each other, no matter what you decide.” Then he left the room, probably on his way to see the press. 

That changed things. Derek could have it all: the family, the boy, the fortune. Still, did he really want to try? For one, he’d have to admit to William that he was wrong to get angry, and he didn’t want to do that. In addition, it felt selfish. He had so much, and all of it was more than what he’d known before. To ask for more sounded greedy, unappreciative.   
But he was a prince now, so maybe it was okay. Nothing was what it used to be, and he might be able to use that to his advantage.   
Nothing was what it used to be - if that wasn’t the most accurate statement, he didn’t know what was. In Russia, Derek never would have imagined that Will could matter to him. Entering France, he never would have believed that he meant something to Will. But if Jack was right, and it really was obvious, then why not take the chance?   
Except that it would be so easy to keep his feet rooted in the ground, and stay in the palace. Just like they’d planned all along. Conman and prince get their wish, and the fairytale comes true. But at the cost of Will. He couldn’t lose him. 

“Forgive me, Jack,” he breathed to the air, and turned away from the main hall, towards the front door of the palace.


	15. Finale

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> If you've read this whole thing (if there's anyone still reading this), thank you so much! Hooray for making it all the way to the end, four months later!

Will listened to the newscast on a radio from a tiny cafe on a backstreet of Paris. 

“As of today,” Jack said to William and the four other people in the room, his voice mixing with the feedback that was a side effect of having the radio’s volume so loud, “there will be no more Dereks. Anyone wishing to call themselves the Prince will be turned away, as it has become obvious that their claims cannot be so.”

William nodded to himself. No more Dereks, because the real one had been found after all these years. He wondered if they would throw a parade or a ball for him. 

“The reward money for his safe return will be given to charity,” Jack continued to say. 

That did surprise William a bit, since he assumed that after he bolted, they would have given the reward money to Adam. He was, after all, the only one who remained that had gotten Derek safely to the emperor.   
Maybe it was for the best. Now that Adam had Justin, he didn’t really need reward money. Will felt no remorse for the money he wanted so badly a few days ago. It didn’t really belong to him anyway. 

The dark wood door of the cafe opened, but William didn’t look up. 

“In fact, there never was a Derek,” Jack’s voice said, and Will squinted. A murmur passed through the cafe. “He was only a dream.”

He felt a hand on his shoulder. Frightened, he swiveled around in his chair. 

“De-”

“Denya,” said the boy standing above him. “Just Denya.”

Will breathed a sigh and motioned to the chair next to him. “Figures you would show up like this, while they’re discussing you on the radio,” he whispered.

“Shh,” Denya touched his arm gently. “I walked almost the entire city looking for you. You don’t get to yell at me when you’re the one who disappeared.”

“Okay, so we both disappeared,” William shook his head. 

“Can we listen?”

Will nodded, and turned his attention back to the radio, nibbling on the pastry he’d ordered. 

“So no more talk of the Prince Derek,” Jack said loudly. “We have no need for fairytales, only the true history of what happened.”

The cafe owner shut off the radio. 

“Let’s take a walk,” Denya suggested, standing up abruptly. 

Will shoved the rest of his pastry in his mouth and followed Denya out the door, onto the street. They didn’t talk - partly because Will’s mouth was full - for quite a few minutes. 

“You gave up the fortune?” he asked once he couldn’t help himself anymore. 

Denya laughed. “Is that what you care about?”

“I care about your future. You know that.”

“I do. I didn’t really give it up. I can still have it if I want it, but I don’t think I’ll inherit it,” Denya shook his head. “Give it to charity. What I really think is important is that Jack and Eric and Adam and Justin are going to be there for me as a family now.”

He nodded. “That is good. I’m glad you’ve found a family.”

He heard Denya breathe heavily. “I have. And I want you to be a part of it.”

Will hadn’t even realized it, but they’d made it to the Alexandre Bridge. He turned to look at Denya, only to find that Denya’s eyes were already focused on his face. 

“I was planning on leaving, actually,” William turned his face away to look out on the river. 

“Where would you go?”

He shook his head. “America, maybe. I hear it’s the place to be right now. It’s all bootlegging alcohol and good fortune and better parties.”

“Sounds like it could be a good place for you. When would you leave?”

“Soon, probably.”

He felt Denya step closer to him, and looked back at him.

“Don’t leave,” he breathed. “I want you here.”

Will swallowed heavily, searching Denya’s dark green eyes for any chance of a joke. “Really?”

“Yes. Of course I do. Do you think I would have run through half of Paris in a suit that costs more than I’ve spent in my life yelling your name if I didn’t?” Denya smiled, and Will would have looked at that expression forever, only he took the moment to lean forward and press his lips to Denya’s.   
He waited a moment, letting Denya decide what he wanted to do. When he felt a hand reach into the wisps of hair at the nape of his neck, he pushed harder, throwing every ounce of hatred, annoyance, and finally romance he’d felt for Derek since he’d met him into one motion. 

Denya pulled back, and moved his hand from the back of Will’s neck to his cheek. “You’ll stay?” he whispered. 

“Yeah. I don’t think I could actually leave.”

“Good,” Derek nodded, and his lip quivered. “I don’t think I could have dealt with you actually leaving. And-” he said, his cheeks rounding out as he smiled “-I can still stay in Jack’s palace. I mean, it’s not a palace exactly, more like a mansion, but I’m sure you could stay there too, if you want. Showers and huge beds-”

“-And you.”

He blushed and kissed Will’s cheek. “Yeah. And me.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks again for reading!

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you so much for reading! Please let me know what you thought with a comment or kudo, and come say hi on tumblr @captainchowder or if you like musicals, @allbesolucky!


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